Counting Down to New Jersey

Scuse me while I don’t blog about world affairs today:

4 more days and I’ll say to hell with all these little jobs I’ve taken over the past 5 months that have completely kicked my ass and left with a constant feeling of “you should be working on that job right now.” It’s 1AM and I just finished some thing for Hine-A-Ken. I mention them by name cause they never told me not to blog about it and it ain’t anything anyone would be interested in, I promise. But hey… hooray for beer I guess. – For all those who dream of going into exile, I still say do it, but never forget that earning the Euros is tricky.

As I read the wonderful knitting-extraordinaire, Ashbloem, today, she spoke of snow, amongst other things. They have snow in Boston. And then in correspondance with Brain of J, I learned Jersey is expecting some snow storm thingy. Now I’m not turning into a blog that talks about the weather or what I ate for breakfast, but I do love when the snow reaches the East Coast, especially in bitter cold yet never-cold-nuff Amsterdam, where we never get enough snow, for my taste.

Fortunately for me I’m headed to New Jersey, THIS FRIDAY, the 9th of December. Where I’ll be spending time with la familia, especially the A-Ren. I’ll also be visiting with all of YOU, for those who are my east coast readers. There will be a Bicyclemark meetup in the East Village, St. Mark’s Place at the St. Mark’s Ale House, right next to Cooper Square and my former love – the village voice. I’m not sure of the day and time yet, but since we’ve got the comment box, leave a comment as to your preferred day and time, anyday before xmas would be best.

Speaking of the Village Voice, those hipsters have finally completely embraced blogging for their staff. Only trouble is, they censor their comments like it’s Tunesia over there. either that or they just don’t want any from a former slave of theirs. I tried to comment on the NYU graduate assistant strike post by the great Tom Robbins (the journalist not the writer.. er.. wait.. yeah), but they’re not having it. Jerks.

Oh and the great 26th birthdate is this Saturday… the amazon wishlist is here if that’s your thing. Ignore the fancy electronic devices. Hopefully they deliver the stuff to New Jersey and not AMS. Alternatively you can leave me a tip in the paypal jar located to the left. And of course you can simply not give me anything, cause if you think about it, your presence here is already a gift.

Unexpected Inner Tour

Travel with me back in recent time: Saturday night and Toronto’s finest Chef in exile calls me, “Yo man, Stars at Paradiso tonight, I put you on the guest list as bicyclemark +1.” I thanked my good buddy, as he always goes above and beyond for me, especially when his longtime friends the Stars are in town. Normally I would call on a lovely Amsterdam feminina to be my +1 for such a great night, unfortunately my potential to land a date is pretty shitty these days, so instead I call my local mindcaster, who’s always up for adventure.

We head over to the former church-turned-nightclub, and as I park my bike I can already hear “One More Night” pouring out one of the stained-glass windows. But as we approach the bouncer-lady and tell her we’re bicyclemark+1, she informs us there’s no such name on the grand list, not even variations of my legal name. I text the man and inform him something went wrong, we wave to him from beyond the glass and he looks apologetic and concerned for us. But in fact, there was a reason for this rejection — we were meant to experience something far great on this december night.

Mindcaster knows as well as I do that the IDFA documentary film festival is still going on, and we could still catch whatever isn’t sold out. We head over to the box office and choose from among the few films showing. I think it was our second or third choice, we ask for tickets to “Inner Tour”, and although it sounds like a generic title, the description tells of a documentary from 2000 where a group of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza are taken on a bus to tour Israel for 3 days. – We bought some heinekens and wandered over to the fairly busy theater.

What follows was one of the most gut wrenching, uplifting, thought provocating, and emotional film watching I think either of us had experienced in some time. Documentaries are typically depressing and dark, probably reflecting the sad state of the world. But this was not one of those, this had bright moments, moments shared between an old Palestinian man remembering the home he grew up in, now in ruins, and uncovering the grave of his father, in the middle of what seems like nowhere. And it wasn’t a film about blaming one side or the other, it was about the unfathomable situation people go through in that region, visiting a place you consider your homeland, but everything is different, and its no longer your homeland, but you wish it would once again be so but you wonder if it ever was.

There were too many scenes to adequately tell you of the beauty and power. But for me, my heart raced as a Palestinian man from Ramallah got into a cab in Tel Aviv and said to the driver “Take me to where they killed your prime minister.” And then the driver asks what the man meant to him, and he tells an amazing story of being imprisoned during the intifada and how the prime minister (Rabin) visited the prison, and came to talk with him, to find a way to make peace. For his part, I think Mindcaster was floored when a young Palestinian who’s family was scattered throughout the world, meets his mother at the Lebanese border, where they can only stare at each other through a terrible fence, and throw care packages over to each other, filled with photos and a video taped message he had recorded during the journey.

The film made me think of how far I live from my family. And how different this world is from the one I’m surrounded with. And how all these things take place while I sit here surfin the net and writing emails about who-knows-what. It’s a cruel irony… those who live in comfort and those who live in pain. Those who go to concerts versus those who simply try to cross checkpoints to find work.

What started out as an unexpected night for music and dancing, turned out to be a true Inner Tour, in more ways the one.

Blogs Always Beat CNN

Trying desperately to stop watching Rocky V which was on the Dutch television this evening, I flipped to CNN (seeking to be entertained rather than informed). Sure enough, I look at the screen and its the very video Daily Kos and Madge Weinstein pointed out almost a week ago; the one with the Aegis military contractors driving around Iraq shooting civilians to a soundtrack. The lame news anchor was trying to convince we the viewers that this was breaking news.

This incident re-enforced what many of us already know, but a majority of the world still doesn’t: blogs are increasingly more dynamic, more informative, and faster to disseminate info than any CNN or FOX ever is. A good blog post or podcast or videoblog when its quickly put online, with background links, and honest presentation, even if the author admits to not knowing all the information that goes with it — it is still far more useful then this crap they push on us via television. And you can bet Aegis, the US military, and others, are all scrambling and stumbling to explain their murderous, criminal ways…. credit to the bloggers.

Speaking of idiocy and deception, the money pit that the US congress has quietly funded with billions, once again failed. Missile defence, what a stupid, wasteful, and dangerous project.

bicyclemark85: CIA Prisons and Torture Airlines

Radio Journalist and Blogger Peter Gentle joins me from Warsaw, to discuss the talk about CIA gulags and where these prisons might and might not be. We also get into the role of Europe has a landing pad for the torture flights, etc.

AudioCommunique #85(mp3)
31min+, 80kbps, 17Mb+

Discussed:

The Beatroot – blogjournalism
Radio Polonia
unnamed sources and the washingtonpost
Not in Poland, but could be anywhere – especially Baku
torture flights
EU will try to do something, but will it result?
Poland’s Role in the War and their Dependency on the US
Intolerance for freedom and openess at home vs. tolerance for torture and killing abroad

oh and I recommended Saskia Nation and Radio Clash – the Anniversary Show

Music:

Outlandish – Guantamo
Boards of Canada – (some background tune)
Jets to Brazil – air traffic control
Vinicius Cantuaria – India

Learn the Internaut Tools: A Refresher

You probably know that this blog isn’t only about world events, Europe, and expat life, it only seems that way! For the longtime readers, you may recall that I like to occasionally give advice and recommend internet applications to use, in order to maximize your use of time, help you find stuff, and make you into the most efficient internet activist you can be. (even if you don’t want to be… convert.. convert…)

Lately I’ve been explaining RSS (really simple syndication) to alot of new people, since an overwhelming majority of web-surfers still don’t use it or understand how VITAL it can be. So if this is old news to you, then you-go-girl, because you’re part of the in-the-know minority– now help me figure out ways to reach the masses. Wikipedia will explain RSS to you, and then you absolutely must start using bloglines, and paste in all the rss addresses from all your favorite blogs, newspapers, weather reports, bittorent sites, auctions, you name it – every website has or will have RSS. Once you start using it you’ll have more time to talk with people in your office, or take a walk, or drink hot chocolate, like I do…. no more typing in the same web addresses day after day: w w w dot b y -oops — b i c y c l e dot o r g. Is this you? It doesn’t have to be — start using my RSS feed

Now there are two other simple and beautiful net tools, free and easy-to-understand, that I demand you look into. First, for those websites and articles you want to save. STOP adding things to your bookmarks. I mean, you might re-install the browser, or work on many computers through the course of the day (like me!), or simply make a dam mess out of your favorites so you can’t find anything anyway. You need to start using Delicious, there – with one click- you can toss in all your important articles and weblinks and they’ll always be there on the net, for your reference. Plus you make tags for each link, so if you look at my delicious, you can imagine how many articles fall under the tag “war crimes”.

The last tool is the absolute easiest, and it’s what alot of you have probably been looking for: a way to search through all the crazy blogs out there, to find specific subjects/topics. Again, it has been around forever, but I’m going to guess many of you have never gone over to technorati and searched for say…. Torture Flights – boom- all the blogs that have talked about torture flights. It even pulls up the latest images on flickr or buzznet, so you can type my name and voila — my thanksgiving glamour shots.

Ok class dismissed, but before you go, I hope you didn’t just ignore all these names thinking that you don’t get it or need any of this. Trust me, you do. The internet ain’t what it was 6 years ago, or even 3 years go, so neither should the way you use it.

So I was talking to a Parliamentarian

Sometime during the thanksgiving weekend extravaganzas, I found myself at the goodbye party for my dear friend and neighbor. As a dynamic international, naturally she had a lineup of multicultural/multilingual guests that would make Kofi Annan blush.

At one point I’m introduced to a very charming young couple. At first he spoke Portuguese to me and explained that he’d studied and lived there. Then his partner engaged me in conversation and we got into the topic of what the Netherlands is doing wrong/ what bothers me about life in this country. I was initially surprised by her curiousity, she pressed me to give specific points and seemed to feed off every point I brought up. So I gave her my grand list:

  1. Health Insurance: No one in this country, including the government people who wrote the plan, understand the new health insurance system they passed which will take effect in January. Its a big step towards privatization, and as she pointed out — there will suddenly be Dutch citizens without health insurance.
  2. Cars: They’ll complain forever about the traffic in this country, but everyone keeps buying cars and wanting more cars. You always hear about how much they ride their bikes, but the fact is, inside and outside the cities, Dutch people love owning cars and don’t want to be slowed by pesky subjects like pollution.
  3. Temp Employment: You know where I stand on this one. Its the fastest growing employer in the country and its not really an employer and in the long-run, skrews everyone.

But here’s the kicker. After having this great conversation, the couple says goodbye as they have to leave. Later my friend comes over and asks, “So did you enjoy meeting your first Dutch Parliamentarian?”

I was speechless, I’d been going on and on, point by point about what policies were mistakes, and as it turns out, I was talking to someone with a very big say in all that (Green Party). And she seemed to love hearing my take… even agreed on many points. Small town, this Amsterdam.