Pen-sil (Penyambung Silaturrahim)

2009-12-06T05:25:00.000-08:00

ditinggalkan oleh seorang kawan, tak kah kau gusar...... tidaaak!Amiiin.....

ditinggalkan oleh seorang sahabat, tak kah kau hilang..... tidaaak!Amiiin....

ditinggalkan oleh seorang kekasih, tak kah kau gundah...... tidaaak!Amiiin....

ditinggalkan oleh seorang pemberi tak kah kau miskin.........tidaaak!Amiiin....

ditinggalkan oleh sang PENCIPTA tak kah kau sengasara.........tidaaak!Nauzubillah

segeralaaah bertaubaat, kembalilaaah kepada-Nya selalu

Jangan tinggalkan Dia.................

jangan sampai ditinggalkan oleh Dia...............

cintailaah Dia selalu di atas segala-galanya

jangan sampai kau di benci oleh-Nya

dekatlah selalu pada-Nya masalah kan terselesaikan semua

Amiiiin....Amiiiin.... Ya Robbal'Alamiiin

2009-03-12T19:56:00.000-07:00

MaNFAAT SEDEKAH (KEMATIAN BISA DIUNDUR)

Oleh : Ust. Yusuf Mansur

DSA AL-HIKMAH Kematian memang di tangan Allah. Maka ada satu hal yang bisa membuat kematian menjadi sesuatu yang bisa ditunda, yaitu kemauan bersedekah, kemauan berbagi dan peduli.

SUATU hari, Malaikat Kematian mendatangi Nabiyallah Ibrahim, dan bertanya, “Siapa anak muda yang tadi mendatangimu wahai Ibrahim?”

“Yang anak muda tadi maksudnya?” tanya Ibrahim. “Itu sahabat sekaligus muridku.”
“Ada apa dia datang menemuimu?”
“Dia menyampaikan bahwa dia akan melangsungkan pernikahannya besok pagi.”

“Wahai Ibrahim, sayang sekali, umur anak itu tidak akan sampai besok pagi.” Habis berkata seperti itu, Malaikat Kematian pergi meninggalkan Nabiyallah Ibrahim. Hampir saja Nabiyallah Ibrahim tergerak untuk rriemberitahu anak muda tersebut, untuk menyegerakan pernikahannya malam ini, dan memberitahu tentang kematian anak muda itu besok. Tapi langkahnya terhenti. Nabiyallah Ibrahim memilih kematian tetap menjadi rahasia Allah.

Esok paginya, Nabiyallah Ibrahim ternyata melihat dan menyaksikan bahwa anak muda tersebut tetap bisa melangsungkan pernikahannya.

Hari berganti hari, minggu berganti minggu, bulan berganti bulan, dan tahun berganti tahun, Nabiyallah Ibrahim malah melihat anak muda ini panjang umurnya.

Hingga usia anak muda ini 70 tahun, Nabiyallah Ibrahim bertanya kepada Malaikat Kematian, apakah dia berbohong tempo hari sewaktu menyampaikan bahwa anak muda itu umurnya tidak akan sampai besok pagi? Malaikat Kematian menjawab bahwa dirinya memang akan mencabut nyawa anak muda tersebut, tapi Allah menahannya.

“Apa gerangan yang membuat Allah menahan tanganmu untuk tidak mencabut nyawa anak muda tersebut, dulu?”

“Wahai Ibrahim, di malam menjelang pernikahannya, anak muda tersebut menyedekahkan separuh dari kekayaannya. Dan ini yang membuat Allah memutuskan untuk memanjangkan umur anak muda tersebut, hingga engkau masih melihatnya hidup.”

Saudara-saudaraku, pembaca dimanapun Anda berada, kematian memang di tangan Allah. justru itu, memajukan dan memundurkan kematian adalah hak Allah. Dan Allah memberitahu lewat kalam Rasul-Nya, Muhammad shalla `alaih bahwa sedekah itu bisa memanjangkan umur. jadi, bila disebut bahwa ada sesuatu yang bisa menunda kematian, itu adalah…sedekah.

Maka, tengoklah kanan-kiri Anda, lihat-lihatlah sekeliling Anda. Bila Anda menemukan ada satu-dua kesusahan tergelar. maka sesungguhnya Andalah yang butuh pertolongan. Karena siapa tahu kesusahan itu digelar Allah untuk memperpanjang umur Anda. Tinggal apakah Anda bersedia menolongnya atau tidak. Bila bersedia, maka kemungkinan besar memang Allah akan memanjangkan umur Anda.

Saudara-saudaraku sekalian, tidak ada seorang pun yang mengetahui kapan ajalnya akan sampai. Dan, tidak seseorangpun yang mengetahui dalam kondisi apa ajalnya tiba. Maka mengeluarkan sedekah bukan saja akan memperpanjang umur, melainkan juga memungkinkan kita meninggal dalam keadaan baik. Bukankah sedekah akan mengundang cintanya Allah? Sedangkan kalau seseorang sudah dicintai oleh Allah, maka tidak ada masalahnya yang tidak diselesaikan, tidak ada keinginannya yang tidak dikabulkan, tidak ada dosanya yang tidak diampunkan, dan tidak ada nyawa yang dicabut dalam keadaan husnul khatimah.

Mudah-mudahan Allah berkenan memperpanjang umur, sehingga kita semua berkesempatan untuk mengejar ampunan Allah dan mengubah segala kelakuan kita, sambil mempersiapkan kematian datang.

Firman Allah SWT:

“Dan Dialah yang menidurkan kamu di malam hari dan Dia mengetahui apa yang kamu kerjakan di siang hari, kemudian Dia membangunkan kamu pada siang hari untuk disempurnakan umur yang telah ditentukan, kemudian kepada Allah-lah kamu kembali, lalu Dia memberitahukan kepadamu apa yang dahulu kamu kerjakan” (An-Nisaa: 78)

(http://tausyiah275.blogsome.com/2006/12/29/manfaat-sedekah)

Street

2007-06-29T09:08:00.000-07:00

For other uses, see Street (disambiguation).

Centre Ville, Beirut, Lebanon

A city-centre street in Frankfurt, Germany
A street is a public thoroughfare in the built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, but is more often paved with a hard, durable surface such as concrete, cobblestone or brick. Portions may also be smoothed with asphalt, embedded with rails, or otherwise prepared to accommodate non-pedestrian traffic.
The word "street" is still sometimes used colloquially as a synonym for "road", but city residents and urban planners draw a crucial modern distinction: a road's main function is transportation, while streets facilitate public interaction.[1][2] Examples of streets include pedestrian streets, alleys, and city-centre streets too crowded for road vehicles to pass. Conversely, highways and motorways are types of roads, but few would refer to them as streets.[3][4]
Contents[hide]
1 Role in the built environment
1.1 Circulation
1.1.1 Vehicular traffic
1.1.2 Parking for vehicles
1.1.3 Pedestrian traffic and vehicular amenities
1.2 Interaction
1.3 Identity
2 As distinct from other spaces
2.1 Nomenclature
3 Etymology
4 See also
5 References
6 External links
//

[edit] Role in the built environment
The street is a relentlessly public environment, one of the few shared between all sorts of people. As a component of the built environment as ancient as human habitation, the street sustains a range of activities vital to civilization. Its roles are as numerous and diverse as its ever-changing cast of characters.
Streets can be loosely categorized as main streets and side streets. Main streets are usually broad with a relatively high level of activity. Commerce and public interaction are more visible on main streets, and vehicles may use them for longer-distance travel. Side streets are quieter, often residential in use and character, and may be used for vehicular parking.

[edit] Circulation

Rue Saint-Jacques, a street in Montreal, 1910
Circulation, or less broadly, transportation, is perhaps a street's most visible use, and certainly among the most important. The unrestricted movement of people and goods within a city is essential to its commerce and vitality, and streets provide the physical space for this activity.
In the interest of order and efficiency, an effort may be made to segregate different types of traffic. This is usually done by carving a road through the middle for motorists, reserving sidewalks on either side for pedestrians; other arrangements allow for streetcars, trolleys, and even wastewater and rainfall runoff ditches (common in Japan and India). In the mid-20th century, as the automobile threatened to overwhelm city streets with pollution and ghastly accidents, many urban theorists came to see this segregation as not only helpful but necessary in order to maintain mobility. Le Corbusier, for one, perceived an ever-stricter segregation of traffic as an essential affirmation of social order — a desirable, and ultimately inevitable, expression of modernity. To this end, proposals were advanced to build "vertical streets" where road vehicles, pedestrians, and trains would each occupy their own levels. Such an arrangement, it was said, would allow for even denser development in the future.
These plans were never implemented comprehensively, a fact which today's urban theorists regard as fortunate for vitality and diversity. Rather, vertical segregation is applied on a piecemeal basis, as in sewers, depressed highways, elevated railways, common utility ducts, the extensive complex of underground malls surrounding Tokyo Station and the Ōtemachi subway station, the elevated pedestrian skyway networks of Minneapolis and Calgary, the underground cities of Atlanta and Montreal, and the multilevel streets in Chicago.
Transportation is often misunderstood to be the defining characteristic, or even the sole purpose, of a street. This has not been the case since the word "street" came to be limited to urban situations, and even in the automobile age, is still demonstrably false. A street may be temporarily blocked to all through traffic in order to secure the space for other uses, such as a street fair, a flea market, children at play, filming a movie, or construction work. Many streets are bracketed by bollards or Jersey barriers so as to keep out vehicles. These measures are often taken in a city's busiest areas, the "destination" districts, when the volume of activity outgrows the capacity of private passenger vehicles to support it. A feature universal to all streets is a human-scale design that gives its users the space and security to feel engaged in their surroundings, whatever through traffic may pass.

[edit] Vehicular traffic
Main article: Traffic

A street full of vehicles in Shanghai

An empty street in Misasa, Tottori, Japan
Despite this, the operator of a motor vehicle may (incompletely) regard a street as merely a thoroughfare for vehicular travel or parking. As far as concerns the driver, a street can be one-way or two-way: vehicles on one-way streets may travel in only one direction, while those on two-way streets may travel both ways. One way streets typically have signs reading "ONE WAY" and an arrow showing the direction of allowed travel. Most two-way streets are wide enough for at least two lanes of traffic.
Which lane is for which direction of traffic depends on what country the street is located in. On broader two-way streets, there is often a center line marked down the middle of the street separating those lanes on which vehicular traffic goes in one direction from other lanes in which traffic goes in the opposite direction. Occasionally, there may be a median strip separating lanes of opposing traffic. If there is more than one lane going in one direction on a main street, these lanes may be separated by intermittent lane lines marked on the street pavement. Side streets often do not have center lines or lane lines.

[edit] Parking for vehicles
Many streets, especially side streets in residential areas, have an extra lane's width on either or both sides for parallel parking. Most minor side streets allowing free parallel parking do not have pavement markings designating the parking lane. Main streets more often have parking lanes marked. Some streets are too busy or narrow for parking on the side. Sometimes parking on the sides of streets is allowed only at certain times. Curbside signs often state regulations about parking. Some streets, particularly in business areas, may have parking meters into which coins must be paid to allow parking in the adjacent space for a limited time. There may be parking lane markings on the pavement effectively designating which meter a parking space corresponds to. Other parking meters work on a credit card and ticket basis; parked cars display a ticket dispensed by a curbside printing meter. Some streets have enough width and light enough traffic to allow angle parking.

[edit] Pedestrian traffic and vehicular amenities
Where vehicular traffic is allowed on a street, traffic and parking regulatory signs are often placed near the sides. Bordering the driving/parking sides of many urban streets, there are curbs. Usually, there are strips of land beyond the driving/parking parts of the streets owned by the government entity owning the streets. Sidewalks are often located on these public land strips beyond the curbs on one or usually both sides of the street. There may be an unpaved strip of land between the vehicle-drivable part of the street and the sidewalk on either side of the street, which can be called the parkway or tree lawn. Grass and trees are often grown there for landscaping the sides of the street. Alternatively, there may be openings in wider sidewalks in which trees grow. Streets are often lighted at night with streetlights, which are typically located far overhead on tall poles. Beyond these public strips of land are bordered the front of lots commonly owned by private parties.
Practically all public streets in Western countries and the majority elsewhere (though not in Japan; see Japanese addressing system) are given a street name or at least a number to identify them and any addresses located along the streets. Alleys typically do not have names. The length of a lot of land along a street is referred to as the frontage of the lot.

[edit] Interaction
Streets assume the role of a town square for its regulars. Jane Jacobs, an economist and prominent urbanist, wrote extensively on the ways that interaction among the people who live and work on a particular street—"eyes on the street"—can reduce crime, encourage the exchange of ideas, and generally make the world a better place.

[edit] Identity
Much as a string in a jar can precipitate a beautiful, delicate crystal, a street can serve as the catalyst for neighborhood culture and solidarity. New Orleans’ Bourbon Street is famous not only for its active nightlife but also for its role as the center of the city’s French Quarter. Similarly, the Bowery has at various times been New York City's theater district, red-light district, skid row, restaurant supply district, and the center of the nation's underground punk scene. Madison Avenue and Fleet Street are so strongly identified with their respective most famous types of commerce, that their names are sometimes applied to firms located elsewhere. Other streets mark divisions between neighborhoods of a city. For example, Yonge Street divides Toronto into east and west sides, and East Capitol Street divides Washington, D.C. into north and south.
Streets also tend to aggregate establishments of similar nature and character. East 9th Street in Manhattan, for example, offers a cluster of Japanese restaurants, clothing stores, and cultural venues.[5] In Washington, D.C., 17th Street and P Street are well-known as epicenters of the city's (relatively small) gay culture.[6] This phenomenon is the subject of urban location theory in economics.

[edit] As distinct from other spaces

Typical street of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London.
A road, like a street, is often paved and used for travel. However, a street is characterized by the degree and quality of street life it facilitates, whereas a road serves primarily as a through passage for road vehicles or (less frequently) pedestrians. Buskers, beggars, boulevardiers, patrons of sidewalk cafés, peoplewatchers, streetwalkers, and a diversity of other characters are habitual users of a street; the same people would not typically be found on a road.
In rural and suburban environments where street life is rare, the terms "street" and "road" are frequently considered interchangeable. Still, even here, what is called a "street" is usually a smaller thoroughfare, such as a road within a housing development feeding directly into individual driveways. In the last half of the 20th century these streets often abandoned the tradition of a rigid, rectangular grid, and instead were designed to discourage through traffic. This and other traffic calming methods provided quiet for families and play space for children. Adolescent suburbanites find, in attenuated form, the amenities of street life in shopping malls where vehicles are forbidden.
If a road connects places, then a street connects people. One may "hit the road" to see the wonders of the world—Jack Kerouac famously chronicled one such journey—but the latest bling will "hit the streets" before it ever appears on a road. It is "on the street" where one hears an interesting rumor, where one bumps into an old acquaintance, where one acquires smarts. One seldom sees a "road" vendor except of fresh produce, or a "road" performer. You'll never find yourself on a long "street" to nowhere or under assault by a violent "road" gang, hence politicians seldom view with alarm the prevalence of "crime in the roads". The street, not the road is home to the homeless unless they are hoboes, and even Kerouac's hero finally returned to find his friends on a New York street.
A town square or plaza is a little more like a street, but a town square is rarely paved with asphalt and may not make any concessions for through traffic at all.

[edit] Nomenclature
Main article: Street name

Abbey Road, London
There is a haphazard relationship, at best, between a thoroughfare's function and its name. For example, London's Abbey Road serves all the vital functions of a street, despite its name, and locals are more apt to refer to the "street" outside than the "road". A desolate road in rural Montana, on the other hand, may bear a sign proclaiming it "Davidson Street", but this does not make it a "street" except in the original sense of a paved road.
In the United Kingdom many towns will refer to their main thoroughfare as the High Street (in the United States it would be called the Main Street — however, occasionally "Main Street" in a city or town is a street other than the de facto main thoroughfare), and many of the ways leading off it will be named "Road" despite the urban setting. Thus the town's so-called "Roads" will actually be more streetlike than a road.
Some streets may even be seen as highways. Hurontario Street in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, is commonly referred to as "Highway 10" — even though such a highway designation no longer officially exists. This is probably due to the fact that the street is a a modern suburban arterial that was urbanized after decades of having the status and function a true highway, so people continued to use the number because of force of habit.
In some other English-speaking countries, such as New Zealand and Australia, cities are often divided by a main "Road," with "Streets" leading from this "Road", or are divided by thoroughfares known as "Streets" or "Roads" with no apparent differentiation between the two. In Auckland, for example, the main shopping precinct is around Queen Street and Karangahape Road.
Streets have existed for as long as humans have lived in permanent settlements (see civilization). However, modern civilization in much of the New World developed around transportation provided by motor vehicles. In some parts of the English-speaking world, such as North America, many think of the street as a thoroughfare for vehicular traffic first and foremost. In this view, pedestrian traffic is incidental to the street's purpose; a street consists of a thoroughfare running through the middle (in essence, a road), and may or may not have sidewalks along the sides.
In an even narrower sense, some may think of a street as only the vehicle-driven and parking part of the thoroughfare. Thus, sidewalks and tree lawns would not be thought of as part of the street. A mother may tell her toddlers "Don't go out into the street, so you don't get hit by a car."
Among urban residents of the English-speaking world, the word appears to carry its original connotations (i.e. the facilitation of traffic as a prime purpose, and "street life" as an incidental benefit). For instance, a New York Times writer lets casually slip the observation that automobile-laden Houston Street is "a street that can hardly be called 'street' anymore, transformed years ago into an eight-lane raceway that alternately resembles a Nascar event and a parking lot." [1] Published in the paper's Metro section, the article evidently presumes an audience with an innate grasp of the modern urban role of the street. To the readers of the Metro section, vehicular traffic does not reinforce, but rather detracts from, the essential "street-ness" of a street.
At least one map has been made to illustrate the geography of naming conventions for thoroughfares; street, avenue, boulevard, circle, and other suffixes are contrasted against one another.[7]

[edit] Etymology

A residential street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Street has its origins in the Latin strata (meaning "paved road"). Its original use, in Old English applied the word to Roman roads in Britain such as Ermin Street, Watling Street, etc. Later it acquired a dialectical meaning of "straggling village", which were often laid out on the verges of Roman roads. In the middle ages, a road was a way people travelled, with "street" applied specifically to paved ways.[8]

[edit] See also

2007-06-21T07:52:00.000-07:00

Weeelcom to My Paradise
Where's My Paradise?

Talk about having a luxury problem : I can't figure out where it would be best to go in the month of May for our honeymoon. Believe it or not, everywhere seems to be either end or beginning of the best/worst season!!
Polynesia is too far and just a tad too expensive unless you take a flight only and sleep on the beach. Seychelles falls into the same category - and whoops no more mid-season alternatives!!!Any holiday suggestions? Anyone had a fab, sunny, hot, beach holiday in May? Please help me out before my little grey braincell goes mad. I keep getting an image in my head of catalogues flying off the balcony... but I guess Spying-Annoying-Neighbour would have a ball coming to knock on my door if that happened...