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Memorial and Liberation

Rememberence Day and Liberation Day, back to back here in the Netherlands. I think I didnt pay enough attention to it last year, however this year I was very aware of it. I made sure to tune into the broadcast of the ceremonies and the two minutes of silence at 20h CET. I was also capitivated by Amsterdam’s cable channel AT5 which showed old film reels from the 1940’s. It is really mindboggling what went on here. What haunts me even more is that I see, in the reels, those same streets and houses i walk by everyday. What haunts me even more is that 60 years later, there are still occupations taking place, mass killing, hatred, intolerance…. seems like much of the world hasn’t learned much at all. History seems to repeat itself… like Marx said.. ( was it him?) first as a tragedy, second as a farce. I see alot of farces among our world leaders.

A Canadian citizen has come forward in the scandal involving prisoner abuse by coalition soldiers. There are multiple photos involving multiple instances, something is definately going on. The pentagon said that soldiers were reprimanded for alleged abuses. If they’re being reprimanded, than I guess they aren’t alleged abuses are they? They’re quite real.

I was reading a poem on a great blog from an EMT in London. It’s about his boots, which have seen so much, from day-to-day. I thought it fitting to read on this a day with so much rememberence and reflection involving hatred, violence, life, death, pain, love and the overall grey history of the world.

Today’s Music: Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros – Streetcore

Photos Speak

A visit to the World Press Photo exhibit today, as expected, was most excellent. I especially enjoyed the photos of people who had migrated to Amsterdam and the photos of their lives here. Somehow, my photo was not up there. Maybe next time. The other photos I took special notice of, besides the mind blowing photos of soldiers in Iraq, were those of the annual 50’s culture reunion in Hemsby, England. Complete with greasy hair, fancy roadsters, and other James Deanish details. Reminded me of certain friends back in NJ. I must remember to recommend it to them.

Still trying to track the prisoner abuse story in Iraq, the BBC reported this morning that those involving British soldiers were questionable because of inconsistancies involving their uniforms and equipment. I acknowledge that photos can be doctored, but I will certainly not dismiss this. Evidence seems to be mounting.

TPB, Esq. is fast becoming my most favorite writer/blogger. I was captivated by his entry exploring Asbury Park, NJ, and his memories of it as a child with his father. Now I really want to go there again when I’m in NJ this summer. (plan in the works) Lots of my memories of Asbury Park are in fact not from childhood, but from the One Cool Guy days where we would play awesome shows at the Stone Pony and also at that Skate Park in that old abandoned carousel place. I used to spend lots of time before our set staring at the massive grey skeleton of an unfinished hotel, or the infamous abandoned Fun House with that scarey smiling clown face.

Today’s Music: Benjamin Biolay- Negatif

Clean this Mess

As I write an army of garbage trucks (or dust-bin collectors as some call them), streetcleaners, sweepers, disinfectors and porta-john recoilers are blanketing Amsterdam. Their task is a momumental one: to clean up this dump after something like 1 million orange clad folk ran/floated around all day filling the atmosphere with crap club music from 1996 and beer cans. (seriously.. so many times today I heard “what is love.. baby don’t hurt me”) It has come and gone, see you next year Koninginedag.

450 million people, 20 official languages, my kind of Union. A warm welcome to EU25 as they are being called! Today Poland, Czech Rep., Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Malta, and Cyprus (greek part) became EU! I’m now an associated-citizen of those countries as well!

On a final note tonight, I hope you’ve noticed the story about the photos of coalition soliders abusing and mistreating prisoners. The whole internet is buzzing about it, so read up on it. It is disgusting, and further illustrates what an awful situation it is. I also blame the military for recruiting mentally ill individuals, as well as young people barely out of high school. Military shouldn’t be allowed into schools to begin with, just as guns shouldn’t, they both help kill people.

Today’s Music: Prince – Musicology

Grab your boats

Well, Queen’s day is upon us. 24 hours from now the canals will be filled with bumper to bumper boats, beer will flow through the streets, men everywhere will be urinating in public, pack-rats (Some of my friends as well) will be selling their old shit, and an all-encompassing orange party fog will consume the city. Thus is queen’s day. The real event of importance for me is the arrival of a wonderful friend from London. Together we will hopefully go to the World Press Photo exhibit.

I grow tired of xenophobia in general, but lately it is the UK that has shocked me with the fear of immigrants that the press seems to be alluding to. Immigrants are a vital part of their work force, as they are in the US, Germany, Netherlands, etc. Without this group of brave and modest people, the the UK’s- and the world’s- economy would collapse. Tony Blair should make this clear instead of trying to please the racist, ethnocentric types.

All this buzz because Saturday is May 1st, the day the European Union expands to 25 countries. I’ll post a special welcome for them all, because as a European Citizen, I’m happy to have them along. The more cultures the merrier, and the less borders the better. There’s nothing natural about these borders to begin with, ever stand on the Canadian-American or Belgian-Dutch border? What a plain feeling, a human-made border. Oceans, now those are borders!

Today’s Music: Tahiti 80 – 1,000 Times

Nature and Trash

It’s important to get out of your daily routine and get back to nature, even if you didn’t really come from nature to begin with, you can go back and pretend. That’s what the staff of the international school and I did today. A boat ride around the Biesbosch just outside Dordrecht was both educational and completely relaxing. Plus I got to speak Dutch, which is always a welcome exercise in a different environment. The Biesbosch is a huge national park which was largely planned, in typical Dutch style, in the early 20th century. I’m always impressed with the strong mix of environmental consciousness and manipulation that they incorporate all over the country. I think in the states the choice is more for the manipulating, than anything else.

We also visited Dordrecht an extremely old city near Rotterdam. It was so quiet, and so picturesque, made me wonder if I’m not missing out on the calm life living in Amsterdam. Naaah.

I wanted to share the following two photos: the first is a typical houseboat in Dordrecht, which I’m sure I could never afford, notice the clothes hangin out to dry

This second photo will be of particular interest to my friends at 2600.

A woman was taking out her trash. She had the usual black garbage bag with her, and she walked across the street from her home, and instead of just opening the lid to this container, she pulled out a scannable keycard! We stopped our tour and immediately asked what she was doing. I found the explanation extremely odd, she said that it ensures that only people in this neighborhood could use this trash container. She also said something about taxes and different neighborhood trash systems. I still don’t get it, anybody heard of this?

A bit of lighter news, I’m now using google’s new gmail as a betatester. Blogger users can now sign up for their own @gmail.com accounts. So far I think it’s nice, 1000 MB is a welcome factor. No sign of those “related to my email content” ads, yet.

Today’s Music: The Rasmus – Into

Besides Red, White, and Black

WE INTERRUPT THIS POST TO WISH EVERYONE A HAPPY REVOLUTION DAY! 25 DE ABRIL 1974

Yes it has been 30 years since Portugal’s carnation revolution. I can’t tell you how much I wish I was in Lisbon this weekend. This is perhaps my most favorite holiday ever, and today is the 30th anniversary. 30 years since the dictatorship fell, since soldiers peacefully overthrew the fascists, and marched through the streets with carnations in their guns. I’ll start my morning by playing the once banned revolution songs, just like they did on the radio that morning. For more try this.

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A few hours today and last night were set aside to attend the Socalist Fest 2004(not the official name) with a kind friend, here in Amsterdam. I went because I’m always curious to hear passionate speakers, and spend time with eclectic grassroots groups. That and I have an affinity for old bearded marxists, pechuli scent, and clever block-text posters/t-shirts. Here’s what was on sale at the conference today.

Well, to my disappointment the speeches suffered from the same sickness many of these conferences suffer from. “Preachin to the choir.” Everyone who showed up already knew that they were against the war, against the right wing conservative governments world wide, and critical of globalization. The only purpose, therefore, getting together served was just to provide them with an auditorium to shout at each other in. I dig shouting, but I was bored. My friend said it best: “Why don’t we leftists stop repeating the same old slogans and make new strategies, why do our tshirts only have black, red and white on them – there are more colors to be used!”

I was mildy amused by the forum I attended “The Other America” which I went to hoping to talk about the Michael Harrington book. No such luck. Instead it was some Dutchman/American Labor Historian who seemed to insist that unions would be the force to save America from the right wing hawks. I’m a proud union member, but this guy really needed to get his head out of the books, unions have been on the run for decades, they’re too busy trying to stay above water, no time to occupy the whitehouse. Oddly enough I said nothing throughout the forum, I sat in silence listening to some well-informed yet rather broken analysis of how to change the US. One point that is worth passing on, these folks would love to be able to vote in a US election, and due to the way it influences the world, they’d like the whole world to be able to vote in US presidental elections. Logistically and legally impossible, but it illustrates a point. When do you hear someone in the states saying “Man, we should be able to vote for the PM in the Netherlands.”

Oh, I’ve added that clever gentleman – Tom Tomorrow, to my blogroll. You know… the guy who does the great comics.

Today’s Music: Johnny Cash & Willie Nelson – Storytellers