all the suharto’s men

Oh no, it’s already midnight and there is still another Suharto show on TV!

Gee, for the last ten days my TVs (all of them, about 9 national stations) aired the ailing former President Suharto almost every hour, night and day. I don’t know what is happening with those producers and editors who treated Suharto’s news with such hyperbolic coverage. I mean, surely, he deserves getting our attention and pray (oh course, Indonesian considered as a good and religous people…:-)) but not that much! Come on!

I am so sick watching that green blanket almost every hour everytime I happened to turn on my TV. And then a continuous scene starred by his head doctor, Mardjo Soebijandono, who addresses the press in daily basis. The news can’t stop here, it would go further, reporting the chaos in Pertamina Hospital (RSPP) where Pak Harto is treated, including a news about pickpocket in his VVIP floor (can you imagine of having a breaking news about capturing a pickpocket in a national channel?), and of course the long queue of his supporters.

Yeah, you can even easily find a report about elementary school children praying dramatically for Soeharto’s health.  Hopefully those adults who ordered such children take action in front of tv cameramen had also already told them to pray for floodvictims around the country, the twister’s ophans, those recently landslide victims in Papua, and hundred millions of other very ill Indonesians. In short, this media circus makes viewers, I mean me, sick! 

My partners in crime, Nicky and Bos Gondrong, have warned me of a nausea for too much watching Suharto’s news on TV. “Better turned it off during this week,” Nicky said.  “Except on 2 pm, time for Bondan Winarno’s gourmet show,” Bos Gondrong smiled. Yeah, we are surely not Suharto’s men, we prefer gourmet show instead.