I took the tram today because it was raining and when I stepped out of the tram in Amsterdam I saw these two cups, glued to a traffic pole. I wonder how long they will stay there.
November 18, 2008
Happy Lefties Soul Connection break
All this talk of recession, lack of pride, populism and people really needing to hear something positive made me decide to hijack this space today for a music video featuring Dutch funksters Lefties Soul Connection. I know there’s some fans out there!
After all, we need a break! So here’s Lefties Soul Connection with “Fais do do” (French for “go to bed”).
Tags: funk, Lefties Soul Connection
November 17, 2008
Tiger Woods has Dutch ancestry, but do we care?
I have no idea why this happens or why this is considered news, but there’s this ‘game’ the print media plays every once in a while which I call “Find the Dutch person” (“Zoek de Nederlander”). Allow me to explain.
Way back when Britney Spears was on the straight and narrow, Dutch Daily De Gelderlander had an article that read something like “Britney Spears has Dutch blood” and went on to explain she had ‘family’ in the province of Gelderland on her father’s side and that made her one fourth Dutch. This was seen as a source of pride.
Then right after Estonia won the Eurovision Songfestival in 2001, the papers said the win was “half Dutch” because Dave Benton was born on the island of Aruba, part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. This came off more like envy because the Netherlands’ last win in the Songfestival dates back to 1975.
And today, popular Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reports that Tiger Woods has Dutch blood because he is – get ready for this – one eighth Dutch! And apparently he’s really proud of being ‘multicultural’ too. He’s about as ‘African-American’ as Barack Obama is. That was sarcasm.
What’s wrong with the Dutch people ‘we’ (you) already have? As a Canadian, I go out of my way to point out that someone is Canadian or else they will be classified as American or French. Back in 1996 De Telegraaf called actor Leslie Nielsen American and sometime around 2004 some Flemish exhibition centre boasted about the great American singer Neil Young. I couldn’t let that last one slide.
Although there are tons of great Dutch people, islands and all who are surely a source of pride, I just cannot understand this identity soul searching. Even Anne Frank was seen a source of Dutch pride although she was German, while the growing amount of populists in the Netherlands are still not sure any Dutch person with a second passport qualifies.
Tags: Anne Frank, Barack Obama, Britney Spears, Dave Benton, Dutch identity, Neil Young, Tiger Woods
November 16, 2008
Free University in Berlin honours Cees Nooteboom
Cees Nooteboom is the very first Dutch writer to receive an honorary degree from a German university, the Free University in Berlin. He is one of the Netherlands’ greatest authors, having won a string of literary awards and one day expected to win the Nobel Prize for literature.
Oddly enough, he is more popular in Germany where he is very much in demand. In the Netherlands, Nooteboom is a successful writer, but it is said that he will never become as popular in the Netherlands as he is in Germany where almost all his books are bestsellers. Nooteboom’s German publisher Suhrkamp has just published his complete works in nine volumes, while the Bezige Bij publishing house in Amsterdam has no plans to do the same.
According to Radio Netherlands, the Dutch are more likely to name Harry Mulisch as being up for the Nobel Prize for Literature.
I can’t help but say “No man is a prophet in his own country”.
(Link: radionetherlands.nl)
Tags: Berlin, Cees Nooteboom, honorary degree
November 14, 2008
Dutch kids are happy because they’re egocentric
According to a survey carried out by research institute TNS Nipo for the Volkskrant and broadcaster NCRV, a few eyebrow-raising conclusions were drawn about raising children in the Netherlands:
“Parents spoil their children too much and do not teach them to take others into consideration. The survey also says that 75% of older generations are not happy with the way children are raised. Child-centred upbringing has been the trend in the Netherlands since the 1970s as a result of smaller families and growing prosperity and this had led to a generation which is demanding and self-centred.”
My Dutch friends refer to annoying kids or parents who let their kids walk all over them by pointing to them in disgust and saying “ikke ikke ikke”, which means “me me me”. A recent case in point was a little boy of about two who kept hitting other smaller children at a children’s party and the parents stopping him, but not reprimanding him in order to stop the behaviour. This went on the whole time I was there. What I’ve heard is reprimanding your kids is bad for them (?) and so getting them to stop bad behaviour has to involve not making them feel bad.
How does that work? It doesn’t. I saw a man hit a five-year-old on the head (!) in an organic supermarket populated by the middle class because he kept poking the man and the mother let it happen. The mother actually had no problem with the swat, as she got to avoid the ‘confrontation’ of trying to punish her own son. Guess what? The kid stopped his bad behaviour.
“However, Dutch children are also the happiest in the western world, according to a World Health Organisation survey in 2008. The report found they are the most pleased with life, get on well with their parents, have a large social network and like their schools. A UNICEF report a year earlier also found that Dutch teenagers are the happiest in the developed world.”
Hell, I’d be happy too if you let me do what I wanted all the time!
Is being all “ikke ikke ikke” a really good universal value to teach your children?
(Link: dutchnews.nl, Photo: Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
Tags: children, Dutch upbringing
November 12, 2008
Meat-plugging vegetarian nominated for sexiest vegetarian award
Can you promote eating Dutch smoked sausage as a vegetarian? The animal activists at Wakker Dier don’t seem to have a problem with that. Jan Vayne, currently the main celebrity plugging Unox smoked sausage on television, was nominated as one of the sexiest vegetarians of the Netherlands. (Personally, I would vote for columnist Leon Verdonschot, but that’s just me.)
On the list of Dutch celebrities that claim not to eat meat, the description of Vayne reads “With his wild hair, Jan Vayne would rather sit at the piano keyboard than sit down for a plate of dead animal.” If I remember correctly, he made it pretty clear more than a year ago that sitting down for a plate of dead animal was mmm mmm profitable. You don’t see him eating any sausage on television though.
Wakker Dier is very much against the bad bad bad meat industry, but not when it comes to their annual most sexy vegetarian contest, which is quite odd. Both Wakker Dier and the Netherlands’ political party Partij voor de Dieren (Party for the Animals) held a huge campaign last year against Unox because they use pork from pigs that were not castrated under anaesthesia.
I once had a boss who claimed and acted superior because he did not eat meat, but showed up at work once, back from visiting the United States with fire engine red snake skin boots. They had midlife crisis part deux written all over them. When I told this to my best friend she said, “he doesn’t eat animals, he just wears them”.
(Link and photo: vleesmagazine.nl)
Tags: Jan Vayne, Partij voor de Dieren, vegetarianism, Wakker Dier
November 10, 2008
Bureaucratica – the power of bureaucrats
Yes, it’s been on for a while, but the current exhibition Bureaucratica, quoted by The Wall Street Journal as “a surprisingly compassionate view of the ways in which individuals inevitably resist all efforts to impose one single standard of behavior,” is on display at the Kunsthal in Rotterdam until 14 December 2008.
The exhibition features the work of photographer Jan Banning who photographed bureaucrats from countries such as India, France, Liberia, the US, and Russia from 2003 to 2007.
(Link: kunsthal.nl, via spunk.nl, photo Jan Banning)
Tags: bureaucrats, Jan Banning, Kunsthal, Rotterdam
November 7, 2008
Magic mushrooms banned as of 1 December
“The ban on the sale of fresh hallucinogenic mushrooms in the Netherlands is set to come into effect on December 1, the AD newspaper reports today. The paper says ministers are expected to vote in favour of the plan at today’s cabinet meeting. The sale of dry mushrooms in ‘smart shops’ is already banned. Health minister Ab Klink said last year he planned to ban mushroom sales following a string of incidents involving tourists. According to Amsterdam health service figures, ambulances were called out 128 times last year to deal with people who had eaten hallucinogenic mushrooms.”
(Link: dutchnews.nl)
November 5, 2008
A Dutch account of Obama’s victory in New Orleans
A Dutch friend of mine, Bente, who now lives and works in New Orleans (of all places!) and who didn’t sleep much last night, hung out at a few places, and everywhere she went, she watched the results with a full house of serious Obama fans.
Allow me to freely translate some of her thoughts:
It’s a historical day in America. More than we sober Dutch people realise. Today a black president was elected.
That Obama is not a real African-American – his father was a Kenyan student in Hawaii and his mother was a white American – barely makes a difference. The man has coloured skin so he’s black and here this means that you’re “one of us” (at least for African-Americans). For many conservative white people, it’s just as bad: the man is black and therefore evil.
That the colour of one’s skin is so important never ceases to amaze me, but here it’s a fact. Obama’s tint has united many and as of today every black kid can grow up with the idea that they too can become president.
I was never this happy about an election result in the Netherlands, but this really touched me. Not because I think the man is a saint or will bring about worldly changes. No, he’s going to have a tough time, and if he survives this, I’ll be impressed. However, the hope he gives people, especially African-Americans is something no one can take away from them. And who knows, maybe something will really change.
UPDATE: The photo credit is always of who takes the picture, not of who is in it!
(Photo: Bente)
Tags: America, elections, New Orleans, obama
Journalists and bloggers could get equal legal protection
Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch-Ballin has submitted a bill to the Dutch Lower House so that journalists obtain the legal right not to reveal their sources. The interesting part is that anyone who publishes for a broader audience will be protected under this law – including bloggers. The bill is designed to put an end to the situation where journalists are jailed for not revealing their sources.
Back in 2006, two journalists from Dutch daily De Telegraaf were imprisoned for not revealing the source who told them about state secrets of the AIVD (General Intelligence and Security Service of the Netherlands) because they revealed information about a top criminal who was their source.
However, having a broad definition of who exactly is a journalist is quite practical. “European jurisprudence shows that protecting one’s source is not just for professional reporters, but also for amateurs and bloggers who can claim to be protecting a source.”
The photo about was taken during the Blog08 event in Amsterdam when a panel of well-known European journalists debated the journalism vs. blogging question. They were not very fond of bloggers as a primary source, although now it seems the law might actually provide bloggers with more leverage in the future.
(Link: webwereld.nl)
Tags: Blog08, blogging, Ernst Hirsch-Ballin, journalism