bicyclemark

Wacky Tall

Lots of unexpected things in my daily life and in the world. Starting with the small stuff, while giving two lovely ladies a tour of the Pijp, we ran into a open garden day where you could visit people’s gardens and they give explanations. The house we visited belonged to a British gentleman and he had great stories of how bad that neighborhood was in the 70’s. Prior to that garden visit, we had amused while running into this man and his wacky bike. I fought the urge to ask if I could try. I did manage to understand how you get on, first one foot on the back peg.. then you climb higher.

Speaking of climbing higher. I really didn’t think it would happen, but Portuguese Prime Minister Dur?o Barroso is the next president of the European Commission. Very odd. I dislike the man and his right-of-center privatization policies in Portugal. Now he’ll take his act to Brussels. This could be considered a liberation day in Portugal, ding dong the dork is gone. (what.. it’s catchy!)They had better have elections now! First off an elected official should never leave his post to take another job, that’s an insult to his electorate.. didn’t he take some vow to fulfill his duties? And if you do leave your post for another job, there shouldn’t be some “appointing” of another Prime Minister.. that sound more like a monarchy to me.

Big woop.. today was the so called “handover”… foreign troops still run the place. American firms still control most of the jobs. Violence is still plentiful. And the new government was appointed, not elected. But what really gets me is not the handover so much as the hypocracy that Iraq deserved to be liberated, yet Sudan’s genocide and years of carnage don’t warrant the same action.

Today’s Music: Alkaline Trio – Good Mourning

Midsummer Spending

Well it happenned. I didn’t want it to happen… but a few hours ago… it became reality that the Netherlands will face Portugal in the next round of the Euro. I can still hear the beep-beeping outside. I’ve talked enought about football lately, so Ill stop there.

So Michael Moore’s new film is out in the states. I looked it up, won’t arrive in here until late July. Stupid American-European distribution gap…. why was the Matrix able to come out on the same day world wide? At any rate, I’m enjoying the initial reactions from people, my good buddy in Queens told me that opening night people were clapping throughout the film (which could make one go crazy I suspect). He also said that at the end the audience gave it a standing ovation. Interesting. Still, I must acknowledge the backlash against this film and Moore in general. It’s hard to tell if its growing or not, but I see it often in the blogosphere.

I noticed the insane shopping list from the US Senate for military spending. Majikthise highlights the:

*$25 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan

*$70 billion for planes, ships and weapons, “surpassing even the buildup of the 1980s”

*3.5% military pay raise along with increases in other benefits

*$10.2 billion for planned missile defense program, for which operational tests must begin in 2005

*Go-ahead for further research on 2 new nuclear weapons: a low-yield “mini-nuke” and a high-yield “bunker buster”

Any nation/group/individual that researches new nuclear weapons is insane. As usual I’m ashamed to be associated with such a government. Nevermind the overwhelming number of neglected children, elderly, and adults all over the US versus the money spent on “star wars”.. thats sort of a tradition. But seeking to produce the most destructive weapons the earth has ever seen, thats just baffling.

Today’s Music: Noir Desir – Des Visages des Figures

Stormy Interviews

This week I somehow got involved in someone at the Amsterdam City Government’s research project on international people living here. Apparently I qualify.. even though so often in this city I’m a clandestine apartment renter. It was a long interview, mostly because I talk too dam much.. and the guy just sent me a transcript of it which I might post on here next time. Basically the questions concerned how I ended up here, what the city means to me, troubles I have, and things I wish would be different. My favorite part was when he hands me paper and asks me to draw a map of Amsterdam. He may have underestimated my keen mapping abilities.. because I needed way more than one sheet.. and he got tedious details I’m sure he didn’t want. He may have enjoyed my responses, especially about what I love about the city. Of course I answered the bikes. But more specifically I talked about certain bikes.. the kinds with a box in front and two little tottlers peeking out at you. Or a bike with a basket and a dog inside looking horrified.. these are things I love. Add that to the pile of other things Ive already said about the dam in other posts. Somehow, I think I made a good contribution to this city and maybe they’ll learn from my wisdom.

The Voice published the annual “Queer Issue” this week. I’ve not yet gone completely through it, but the article on the Brief History of Christopher Street looks great. I’ve decided to have a greater knowledge of NYC and greenwich village, I will read “Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the making of the Male Gay World 1890-1940” by George Chauncey.

Last night after attending a Broken Social Scene concert for Dutch public radio, (show is available online)I came home and caught a special on Ingrid Bettancourt the well-known Colombian politician, mainly from her daughter’s testimony. I can’t believe she’s still in captivity in Colombia. She was kidnapped by the FARC in 2002. It was a super-interesting documentary, I was capitivated by the old footage of Ingrid campaigning in Bogota. Apparently she is still alive because there have been video messages. As much as I dislike the Colombian government, I find the FARC is also quite ignorant and completely lost. There’s a movie somewhere called “The Kidnapping of Ingrid Bettancourt” but I couldn’t find it on the web.

Today’s Music: Neutral Milk Hotel

Ship Who into What?

Inspired by TPB esquire’s “Photo Envy”, I’m going to start some sort of photo series, this week, on my blog entitled “Amsterdam Summer Signs” where I can present different scenes I see during my day that scream summer. I thought of this as I was riding up the Marnixstraat today and there’s a woman on skates pushing a stroller faster than most bikes. To me, this is one of those signs… summertime. Of course there are others, insane amounts of joggers in Vondelpark for example. I notice this alot lately, and I’ve developed a new method of symbolic communication. You jog slightly next to one person as an almost even pace.. eventually they become like your pace car.. as you do for them. Without words, I had a running partner yesterday. Either that or the guy thought I was cute enough to run with. Next time I’ll see about getting a running-mate of the female persuasion.

I wanted to discuss the successful private space journey. As you should by now, it worked, and ultimately this company intends to send tourists into space. (obviously extremely wealthy ones) While I love space research and advances in that area, I get frustrated with these developments. While NASA gets virtually neglected by the government in the area of non-military space research, and has now haulted all human space flights, the already slow process of space exploration has seemingly haulted. That is, if it weren’t for the Russian, European, Chinese, Japanese, Canadian and Indian space programs which continue to move forward. (though only Europe, Canada, Japan and Russia work in cooperation with the US) But instead of encouraging private firms to persue research with the aim of learning more about the universe and space travel, these guys want to fly rich people into space. Space tourism…. the predecessor to space fast-food and space hotels I guess. It is not that I’m completely against it, I just wish if they must do private space work, make it beneficial for science and humankind.. instead of.. well.. tourists. At the very least their new spaceshuttle might help towards that goal.

I’m very pleased to announce, and I hope she doesn’t mind me doing so, BlondeButBright, my dear friend and UvA-ASCoR PhD student’s weblog. It’s sure to become one of my favorites, I’m adding it to the unfed pile now, and I encourage people to check it out in the coming days. Welcome to this kooky blog world!

Today’s Music: Rickie Lee Jones – The Evening of my day (get this now!)

Yes Sports Happen

Putting aside my huge distaste for Portugal’s hosting of the Euro2004 Cup Tournament, due to the huge amounts of money poured into new stadiums instead of actual important things like REAL hospitals and SERIOUS public transport. (Portugal lags bigtime in that dept.) So leaving all that aside, I’ve been watching the matches closely, and for the most part – enjoying. It has been super exciting. Last night’s Portugal victory was super-sweet and very nerve-racking. They will go on to the next round. Hopefull the photo that appears here will be Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal … 19 year old.. plays for Manchester U.. the boy is pure poetry. He makes me, a non-football fanatic, a believer. He flies! He leaps! He’s pure magic!

On a sadder note the Dutch lost last night, but it was one of the most exciting matches I have ever seen. The Czech team are insane… like a bunch of superheros.. the XMEN of football. (soccer.. I always mean soccer!)

Enough with the sportstalk. Relations between Pakistan and India continue to improve politically. This is good news. I dislike nuclear weapons, and these two nations are up to their proverbial necks in ’em. Slowly they’re taking steps to stop developing their nuc programs and ensure neither of them ever uses them. If only we could get rid of everybody’s.. especially the US and Russian ones. Oh yeah, this news led me to discover the Pakistani Perspective… a good blog on Pak news.

Browsing the latest from Tony Pierce, I decided to become a frequent reader of his co-worker Danielle. Its a very non-political blog as far as I can tell. But I appreciate the writing style, not mention that she hates wearing underwear. Who can blame her?

Today’s Music: Jobim-Morrelenbaum/Sakamoto – Casa

Not a place to work

Ever since my move, besides being very sleepy, my social calander has really filled up. I guess it’s just a summer thing, summers in Amsterdam are always choc full of celebrations and cultural events, as they should be. Last night I was at Concertgebouw listening to the UvA Orchestra play Mahler. Quite nice.

But lets get to beheadings and bullshit. First off, I find the exagerated coverage of the beheading of American workers in Iraq, over the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq, rediculous. It’s as if human life is now valued according to how someone dies, not if they die. If you get shot in Iraq you make the third page of the newspaper, if you get kidnapped and beheaded, you make the front page and you get all sorts of special reports about you. Wonderful isn’t it? Even the blogosphere is into it. Though far more diverse than traditional news sources I would hope.

Why are these Americans working in Iraq? Most of them are there because they can’t get good jobs in the US, so they join the war-profiteers Halliburton, who on their own website offer a service for sending messages of “support” for American employees. Welcome to the new private army, working and dying for the sake of profit. I am not shocked that they are beheaded or whatnot… people are angry.. their country is under the control of a foreign government and they are desperate. Rather than go for the classic “they are barbarians” talk, I would rather say the other awful force in this equation are the corporations who insist on persuing big-money contracts in Iraq, and then hiring Americans to work there. There are no statistics available since there’s barely a government in place, but we all know there are an enormous percentage of Iraqis without jobs. Ironically, the ones doing the kidnapping were probably once the engineers and technicians of the country. I think it’s far too easy to just sit around calling them evil and barbarians… the situation is far more complex.

Add to that, in this day and age… all of those videos and websites could easily be forged… and they are somehow conveniently revealed every two months or so. Perhaps whenever support for the “war” dips, someone makes up another beheading story/video/site. (yeah yeah, I know.. its a conspiracy theory.. they have families.. but it is not impossible)

Here’s the part where I remind everyone I’m a pacifist and I don’t support war or violence as a means to accomplish any sort of advances in this word. On other hand, I love them video games!

Today’s Music: Noir Desir – acoustic Live on TV5