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Dutch Municipal Elections Article
The following is an excerpt from a piece I wrote this past week for the Guardian CiF, to read the full text, click the link below: The media have recycled the same headlines following Dutch elections for about a decade now, and similar observations are regularly trumpeted in international newspapers. Part of me thinks they... »
Coffeeshops, Drug Tourism, and Politics (podcast#316)
Two Dutch municipalities decided last year that all their coffeeshops must be closed down. While in other cities, like nearby Breda, city governments have no intention of going back to the days of street dealing in back alleys and dark corners. Selçuk Akinci is a blogging-tweeting digital native, not to mention the chairperson of... »
The Unfinished Drug Policy of the Netherlands (podcast#315)
People around the world admire, hate, or giggle at what they think they know about drug policies in the Netherlands. But how much do they really know? To get beyond the tall tales and the half-baked explanation you’ll get from enthusiasts on both sides of the drug issue, it is important to not only... »
Longterm Social Crisis
This week several mainstream headlines quoted “experts” who pointed to signs of economic recovery on the horizon. I think they were referring to Europe, but if you search the news, you’ll find other experts pointing out signs of the same for Japan and the United States. Of course after experts say such things they... »
Hacker Camp 2009 Impressions
In many ways it is as if we never left. 2 years ago I sat at a picnic table under a tarp on the Polish-German border on the site of a former East German military base with a couple of thousand hackers and general purpose nerds. 2 years later here I sit, this time... »