Citizen Reporter

I Must Swing

Some fairly big news in my life, and what better night to announce it than a sunday when you’re all off doing more important things. I’m fairly certain that as of early October, I will no longer be employed by the university. That is… at my current job, my contract is up and won’t be extended in any way. I’ve got many other jobs, mind you, but they are all freelance. Which means more free time to work on my real passion, citizen journalism. The money part I will figure out, with help from my fantasic network around the world.

I was thinking about how life will change, while boat riding around town with Brooke the other day. Yup, the Brooke is back as a resident of Amsterdam… amazing how life works in circles, sometimes in a good way. And as we boated around, we came upon these children hanging from a rope off a very tall bridge:

Watching this somehow put things into perspective for me. As the children swang back and forth, hanging on as long as possible, before letting go of the rope and jumping in the canal. Then came the next group, again swinging back and forth.. almost as if they didn’t want to make the jump too soon; a familiar feeling.

One thing I decided right then and there: especially considering that I’ll have more freetime this year, I’m climbing up that bridge and swinging on that rope. Because it looked dam fun to jump in.

bmtv19 Silent Boat Film

Summer has been extended by one month, and my career is taking an unexpected turn… therefore.. a no comment vlog.

bm154 How Red Ken Changed London and Beyond

Tim from Radio Clash joins me in this first installment of the Global Mayor series. We focus on Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, and how he came to be elected and what he has done since coming to power.

Wikipedia on Ken Livingstone

Nicest Populations Get Murdered

Sitting in the heart of the Jordaan this evening, as boats sailed by, bikes rattled past, and drunken teenagers hobbled from bar to bar, I spent some quality time with a very special girl. She graduated, as did I, from the U of Amsterdam, and during her studies went off to Darfur to do field work related to displaced people and the genocide that happened and is beginning to happen again.

She’s been travelling alot lately, and so I updated her on things like Spike Lee’s documentary, conspiracy theories, and who’s been on Bill Maar’s show lately. As we sat there talking about all the death and destruction in the world, she began to go into detail about her experience in Darfur and how everything is unfolding with the world’s full knowledge and yet nothing is done.

Among the things she talked about was the hospitality she received there, how people were so unbelievably welcoming to an American girl from Georgia. They even knew I was Jewish, she said, to further emphasize how kind the people of Darfur are. We went on to speak about the oil deals and other interests, especially those of China and Russia, that further help to halt any and all efforts to intervene in the mass murders.

At some point, she puts her empty glass on the table and says something like

“It is almost like, the nicer a culture or a population, the more likely they are to be victims of mass murder.”

I thought about that as I rode home. I thought about her travels and how eventually, she’ll likely end up back in Sudan, trying to do whatever she can, her small part in the face of so much complacency. As sad as the conversation sometimes seemed, it is inspiring to spend time and share ideas with someone of such intelligence and understanding of the world around us.

Don’t Wake Me, Amsterdam is Sleeping

“Again last night I had that strange dream, where everything was exactly as it seemed. Concerns about the world getting warmer, people thought that they were just being rewarded. For treating others as theyd like to be treated, for obeying stop signs and curing diseases. For mailing letters with the address of the sender, now we can swim any day in november.” (Postal Service)

I think about that song alot while cruising down the canals or playing a late night of ultimate during this Amsterdam indian summer. Seems like every year this happens. The fall barely exists and we have summer in september and then switch instantly into winter at some point. It would seem that global warming, at times like this, makes this famously bad weather city, into a tropical paradise. That is, of course, as long as you ignore that the water levels are rising and they’ve announced the big dijk that keeps the ocean out, up north, has to be re-enforced and heightened. And of course they’ll do it in a grand way with all the latest whistles and bells as only the Dutch can do… but at some point you have to wonder how long this country can hold its breath against the heating of the earth that threatens to flood it all.

Yet another reason why I live here now. Situations like this, you can’t wait til later, cause there may not be a later. Next time someone asks, how long will you stay in the Netherlands, maybe I can be annoyingly clever and answer “Til global warming swallows it up.” (then I’ll finally move to Berlin)

One classic moment that pretty much represents my life over here came last night, and I thought to share it in this post. I’m cruising towards home after an evening of sailing tamisevans around town, and I receive an sms from the MacDocMan. I call him and he says “Why don’t you come join me for a drink at So-and-So bar.” And I say, “OK, I’ll park the boat and run over there.” To which he replies “Ok, Ill put your name in the book cause its members only.” And I look at my sandles and dirty sleeveless frisbee shirt and I tell him “Wait, I’ll never get in that place. They have a guest list and Im coming in dressed like a beach bum.” He immediately shouts back, “PLEASE, you can wear whatever you want, this is a total leftist club that doesn’t give a shit.” -click.

And indeed, it was.

Loose Change Leave Me Alone

I hate this goddam film.

Loose Change.

“Did you see loose change yet?”

“What about Loose Change bm?”

One more person asks me about Loose Change… I may just snap and commit myself to a Dutch looney bin.

I hate writing off arguements as “conspiracy theories”. I think conspiracies are very important and are often the cause of something, the result of one too many secrets or inconsistancies. So I’m all in favor of investigating them. Plus, I certainly don’t just swallow what the government gives me when it comes to information, so there again, I say question the answers.

But Loose Change is another creature all together. It captivates people somehow. 5 years later and somehow people seem to have just realized that there was something very un-normal and inconsistant about the way the events of that day went down. Loose Change becomes the source of their born-again skepticism. To some extent, as I stated previously, I can understand it.

But what I can’t stand is the out-of-wack priorities. The excessive focus on the film, and the details, to see who has the right film and the right photos to prove or disprove certain stories.

The fact is, regardless if the towers were purposely demolished by some unknown entity, or destroyed by planes as a result of a government that refused to heed warnings or take any extraordinary measures to prevent them, a crime of enormous proportion has still been committed. The net result, when all is said and done, is still criminal. Loose Change can argue all it wants about how it happened and how it didnt happen, but it doesn’t change much when it comes to the end result and who was ultimately responsible for preventing or being prepared for such a situation, and they certainly were not.

Do you follow me here? I’ll try and be more clear, as many have pointed out I was not successful in doing during my last podcast: Myself, I could care less about Loose Change, and the attention it gets bothers me, because I believe it is misplaced attention. A better use of time and energy would be to come up with a strategy for holding the criminally negligent responsible. It concerns me, to some extent, when figuring out conspiracies becomes the primary goal, in place of focusing on how to address the crime.

One might say, well this is only one step, so whats wrong with that. You could argue, it is necessary to first know the truth. Fine points. But what I see thus far, since this film started out last year, is that the public watches it, argues about it, and to this point… nothing comes of it. I may just be getting ahead of myself.. but I can’t take it anymore.. I am absolutely sick of Loose Change.

Listen to the Democracy Now debate which includes the writers and you might notice there is something really wrong with these guys. Besides the holes in their arguments, their refusal to admit the slightest possibility that theyre wrong, and the constant laughing and rediculing their oppenents during the debate, for me.. all signs that these boys are simply not as legitimate as many give them credit for.