There's no such thing as a free lunch...Or is there?

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It's official. The next president of Indonesia is former army general Prabowo Subianto. Quite how the next five years will pan out is anyone's guess but hopefully the foreign pundits who always bring up his dodgy human rights record will be proven wrong. Nonetheless, on policy making, Prabowo's popularist move to literally offer the poor 'a free lunch' every day of the week does not augur well for the future. Such a policy - if it ever came to fruition - would cost a phenomenal amount of money and likely lead to huge inefficiencies (food waste) and poor incentives (make people lazy). Another concern is Prabowo's strong nationalist bent. Thus, in the possible event that he finds himself with his back against the proverbial wall in the face of stern economic challenges, there is a big chance that he will simply scapegoat foreigners. But he will have to be careful. Construction of the new capital city, Nusantara, for example, is highly dependent on foreign in
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Fuzzy Wuzzy origins

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he? 

A very memorable line of children’s nursery rhyme verse, but years later, having taught it to my daughter, it’s occurred to me that I don’t even realize what it means! Not only that but what are its origins? And could it even be racist? Well after a cursory check on the net it looks like my concerns appear to be justified! 

Because the origin of the verse can be traced back to the 19th century when British colonial soldiers used it to describe members of an East African nomadic tribe called the Hadendoa. The term caught on and was later used to denote tribal peoples in places like Papua New Guinea and Australia. 
 
Legendary British poet Rudyard Kipling – who wrote The Jungle Book in 1894 – even penned a short poem called 'Fuzzy Wuzzy' in 1918, paying tribute to the fighting abilities of this gutsy African tribe: 

We've fought with many men acrost the seas, An' some of 'em was brave an' some was not: The Paythan an' the Zulu an' Burmese; But the Fuzzy was the finest o' the lot. 

Yep, the British soldiers must have been shocked by the flamboyant and unusual appearance of the “fuzzy Wuzzy” warriors. 

But then again, did they ever think to consider what the “Fuzzy Wuzzy” thought of THEM?

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