Harlem Rockets vs Dream Team

Hari Jum'at kemarin ini harusnya ada janji makan siang sama temen di Brattleboro Downtown. Tapi setelah nunggu selama 20 menit di Mocha Joe's (semacam warung kopi gitu deh), eh dianya nelpon dan bilang, "Aku ga bisa pergi!" Sial. gondok deh.

Makanya, pas sorenya diajakin pergi nonton basket di Keene State College sama temen-temen, aku males, "Aku lagi anti social," begitu alasanku. Tapi temen2ku terus maksa, "Gita, ten dollars, when you goin back to your country, you'll lookin back at this time then you'll regret that you werent goin with us."

Akhirnya akupun memutuskan ikut.

Pertandingan basket di Keene State College ini cuma for fun. Ngga ada kejuaraan. Yang bertanding: Dream Team (yang terdiri dari anak-anak high school, 4 di antara mereka berasal dari sekolahku lho!) versus Harlem Rockets.

Harlem Rockets ini adalah tim basket professional yang memang entertaining. Di setiap show nya, mereka biasanya cuma lucu-lucuan doang; keluar make kostum yang aneh-aneh, dribble bola terus bolanya malah masuk ke dalam baju, dan sebagainya. Plus secara fisik mereka ini juga amazing. Dua di antarnya setinggi enam dan tujuh kaki!!

Jelas aja mereka membabat habis Dream Team. Skor akhirnya 57 : 67 untuk Harlem Rockets. Padahal Dream Team ini terdiri dari pemain2 pilihan dari beberapa high school varsity teams.

Anyway... show yang berlangsung kurang lebih dua jam ini cukup menghibur. Selama pertandingan, lagu hip hop dimainkan, bikin penontonnya pengen goyang terus.

Para pemain dari Harlem Rockets juga constantly berinteraksi dengan para penonton. That was Fun..

*gita*

$%)&#^@)*$^&^@# (read: the US presidential primary system)

Nerusin tema presidential primaries dari Gita.. so in case you didn't know, gw termasuk staff koran sekolah gw (aka The Annie Wright Inkwell), dan kebetulan gw dikasih assignment to write about the primaries from the perspective of an exchange student. Plus, I just finished another debate tournament yang topiknya tentang the primary system. So I thought it would be cool to share some stuff with you! (If you despise or don't care about politics, might as well ignore this post ^^)

So, confusing, complicated, sometimes even unfair. Yes, that’s about exactly how I feel looking at the almighty US political system as a foreigner. My first thought at hearing the word primary was, “what the”. After asking a few people about it, I get the basic gist: it’s the process to elect a presidential candidate from both the Demoratic and Republican Party. So then I thought, “ok, great. But what’s all the fuss about?”

Sensing my complete lack of understanding on the subject, I decided to do research about it. So, after shifting through numerous websites, news articles, magazine articles, charters and episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, I can say that I now have the information I need to understand the subject. Perhaps even more than I had been willing to pay attention to.

But nevertheless, I now realize that the system is, to say the least, imperfect. With every party in each state able to make their own kind of primary: caucus, open primary, closed primary… no wonder some people are confused! Not to mention, citizens who are overseas, especially in the military, are often disadvantaged due to the problems with mailing the absentee ballots.

Then, the primary system emphasizes the domination of the two-party system. With all media attention on the primaries, potential third-party or non-partisan candidates are neglected and unheard of.

Speaking of the media, the system hits another problem: the fact that it is highly unfair to some candidates. Not only do hopefuls have to pay the filing fee in each state to just get on the ballots in each state (some like South Carolina require a hefty $25,000), the candidates also have to spend an additional tons of money to pay for advertisements, media coverage, and traveling across the nation. This unbelievable expense has been known to cause candidates to drop out of the race. One example is multimillionaire Mitt Romney, who was quoted in The Economist saying “Does anyone have change?”: too poor to pay for his own coffee. As we know, he has dropped out of the race.

Furthermore, the system consistently cause conflict within the nation, such as the issue with superdelegates and their roles in the primaries (who, by the way, are party members who only vote as a tie-breaker, if the number of votes for the candidates are too close to call, and despite what you might have heard, their votes has the same weight as any other delegate). Another problem is the issue of front-loading, which is where states have pushed their primaries forward so they have more influence, which resulted in Florida and Michigan losing a part or even entire delegates.

So in the end, I’m back to my original thought: “what the”, and now added with another thought: “why???”.

And then I realize that the primaries are one of the things that make the United States a working democracy. The primary system and all the attention it gets interest enfranchised voters so that they actually vote. With the information, voters are also able to learn in depth the plans, ideas, and characters of each candidate so that they further learn who would make the better president and what should be on the platform. But the best part is the simple fact that the primaries give power to the people, because unlike most countries such as the United Kingdom, the people have direct voice to express who they want as the party’s presidential candidate instead of giving the choice solely to the elite party members.

I wish I could compare this system to the Indonesian system of picking a presidential nominee, but, and I'm very embarrassed to say, I am also in complete lack of understanding about the subject. I guess there's more research to do *sigh*.

So there you go, my ramblings on the primary system. Ga tau deh whether that helps or not. But you know, whatever, hope you enjoyed it haha.

Barack Obama is on the phone!

Apparently, the presidential candidates have bunches of ways to attract the public. Their brand new tactics is randomly calling the people, and deliver their campaign on the phone! Yesterday, I went to my friend’s—Sam Harris—house. He and his sister was freak out and said, “We just got Barrack Obama on the phone!” But I wasn’t really paid attention because I’m too excited to see Sam’s girlfriend’s new hair color (she dyed her hair dark-brown).
This morning, probably around 8 o’ clock in the morning, the phone was ringing in our house. My brother (the birthday boy, he turns 12 today) was picking up the phone. The next second he was laughing, “Hillary Clinton is on the phone!” and he hang up. I just realize that campaign via phone call is the candidate’s brand new tactic. Unfortunately some people are careless and they rather hung up on them.
I’m not a big fan of presidential election issue. But some of you may expect that I’m being a little more aware, since I’m involved in Greetings from America J So this is a little bit story around the campaign that I noticed: Barrack Obama (D) and John McCain (R) were arguing and ‘attacking’ each other on their speech related to Iraq War. McCain frankly justified America’s decision to send the troops to Iraq because this is about safety reason. “There is Al-Qaeda hiding somewhere there,” that was pretty much what he said. The next day, in Obama’s campaign (unfortunately I didn’t even know where was it) he said, “There is nothing such as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, until President Bush and John McCain decided to send the troops.” And that was followed by claps from the crowds.
Well, since I ain’t American citizen, I won’t bother to choose whether I want Hillary Clinton or Barrack Obama or John McCain or Huckabee. But I’m hoping that whoever win is he or she who’s gonna end this baloney war soon. I know though that there are probably a lot of considerations to call back the troops from the battle zone, even though I don’t know what are they. I also still questioning my self, if America and his troops decided to stop their intervention, will the terrorism by the militant groups of Moslems stop? *eyes rolling*
“gita”