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Post by maarts on Nov 3, 2004 7:52:31 GMT -5
Hi y'all- what a peace and quiet on the boards- guess our American friends are going through the same stages of conservative election-shock we went through just a few weeks ago.
Finally had a day off after three bloody long weeks of work...eh well, off....tons of laundry, shopping and unruly lawns to manage. Bluh. But managed to listen to lots of music too- now playing A Perfect Circle's new one...review in IM.
Weird week too. First John Peel, who I consider a bit of an icon dies, now today I hear about the murder of Dutch film director Theo Van Gogh, who I once interviewed in my journalistic days (awful man but riveting personality)...then allround friendly guy and Dutch cycling legend Gerrie Knetemann found dead too...seems like all bad news is coming in today.
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Post by Thorngrub on Nov 3, 2004 9:59:30 GMT -5
"review in IM" -- huh? wuddat? Cuz . . . I wanna know what you thought of eMOTIVe, maarts. I'm formulating my feedback of APC's 3rd effort, even as I type this . . .
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Post by strat-0 on Nov 3, 2004 10:07:41 GMT -5
Hate to hear that, Maarts. Yeah, kind of melancholy here too. More rain here as well - daylight savings time ends... Dark at 5 o'clock now. Yuck.
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Post by maarts on Nov 3, 2004 17:44:05 GMT -5
We're into summertime-mode here, strat so we're slowly gliding into summer mode. I never liked the shortened winterdays- sometimes if I had to start work at 8 in the morning I ended going to work in the dark and leave the place in the darkness as well...
I just hate the extended differences in timezones as I now have to wait till very late to call my folks in Holland if I need to speak with them.
Nah, was just surprised last night that, watching the Australian news, there were two shocking newsreports about Holland that took my breath away. Seems also that bad news travels in droves...happens in y family too- one moment everything's fine, the other there's drama all over the place.
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Post by strat-0 on Nov 3, 2004 18:16:26 GMT -5
I read the Van Gogh story in the paper at lunch (it made the local papers), and I really see what you mean, Maarts. It's a shame to see that sort of thing happening in a place where a tradition of free speech and tolerance goes back for centuries.
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Post by ScottsyII on Nov 4, 2004 6:04:16 GMT -5
I've noticed a certain quiet around the boards this week... I think Maarts might be right on the money with the election shock theory...
looks like it status quo for both the land of OZ and the states for the next four years... God help us!
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Post by maarts on Nov 4, 2004 7:00:59 GMT -5
It's funny though that we all react so shocked when something so violent happens in a so-called tolerant society. After the murder of Pim Fortuijn we were crudely awoken to the fact that you can be tolerant as a society but that doesn't necessarily reflect on all of its inhabitants.
The danger after the Van Gogh-murder is that the increasingly strong undercurrent of discontent with the youthful Moroccan population in Holland grows even stronger. It has to burst sometimes. Now I read tonight that several Moroccan youths have disgraced and spat upon a mural which was erected in Van Gogh's memory...you can almost feel the tension coming to a crescendo.
It has made me think about the selfperceived tolerance and what it has brought to the Dutch personality as a whole. Have we been taken over by less tolerant cultures and societies who do not care about respecting the nationality they so wanted to adopt when they first entered the land? Has our tolerancy and hospitality led us to diffuse our own culture and have we been forced to compromise, to be thrown into a melting pot to some out as a whole new Dutch society? What if the increase in foreign nationals gets to a level that will bust the (fragile) state of peace that exists between those cultures? As the rise of Pim Fortuijn has proven, the Dutch themselves are sick and tired of aggressive foreigners (nicely being trumped up by our impartial media) and the 'ghetto-ising' of their own cities and villages nationwide. Holland has changed, it has been forced to accept the social-dempographic changes as the make-up of the population changed drastically in the last 20 years or so.
What I'm afraid of is that this could blow up badly. There have been mass demonstrations in Amsterdam. This will not rest, even not after the burial of Van Gogh.
Ironically, he would have laughed his ass off if this would develop into a fight. He alwas loved to stir people's feelings- this would have been his ultimate production.
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Post by maarts on Nov 4, 2004 7:21:28 GMT -5
BTW I noticed how the last posts of this board don't make the View Top Ten Last posts-list on the starting page...so this probably is as close as we can get to a secret board  |
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Post by Thorngrub on Nov 4, 2004 12:06:07 GMT -5
maarts - as awkward as this may sound - my condolences go out to you and your fellow countrymen on behalf of the cruel & pointless murder of VAn Gogh. I read that yesterday in the paper here too, and was, frankly, sickened, as well as saddened by it. Made me wonder if his film will be propelled into a sort of martyrdom-status because of it. Let us hope so.
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Post by mellie on Nov 4, 2004 20:33:26 GMT -5
Ok then!! Whos got a secret to tell???!
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Post by kats on Nov 4, 2004 20:46:41 GMT -5
it sdays this is the last board updated, but not in the top ten.
ok, me first.
i'm not really a woman.
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Post by RocDoc on Nov 5, 2004 14:10:27 GMT -5
 ! I thought it was 'secrets' not lies, heh... ~ Regarding the 'dilution' of all nationalities these days(and my sympathies for the Van Gogh murder, maarts)...and not wanting to be drawn into some PC-thing about how 'evil' nationalism of all types must be...European countries in particular have got some very tough choices to make regarding immigration, especially that now the European Union status makes travel within all of those countries EZ as pie. Still, if I'm imagining the genesis of the idea of some sort of an EU correctly, was this to be a sort of 'United States Of Europe', with free movement and interchangeable and reciprocal 'rights'? Well outside of election of the 'Presidents' and Chancellors and whatnot... Then citizens of former African colonies of European nations(ie France which is the one I know had African colonies and then others besides)normally are given some sort of 'rights' in the countries they've been colonies of....in a sort of reparations-type sense, aren't they? That would explain there being lots of Algerians as well as Cameroonians in France....in fact, I've got a friend who's Cameroonian but born and raised in Paris...talks with a very cool French accent. Interestingly he also thinks that Algerians suck...FWIW. Then(re the 'privileges')IF that's true then are they then also extended the EU-type privileges which citizens of EU-member countries get? Meaning that that's how shitloads of Moroccans ended up in Holland? Or was there maybe a colonization of Morocco by the Dutch once? Having been to the country of my parents' birth, to feel that 'Hey, this is fucking cool! I definitely AM among my people!'...this feeling of a linkage to the past, in the best possible sense of a long history of a continuous, distinct culture and language. THIS is something which I feel very fortunate to have felt...and which I do not feel through my 'American' nationality with it's polyglot Heinz 57 mishmosh of people having all come here for ideology and economics...it's so...'artificial' and slapped together in a sense...in cultural terms at least, with a whole, what, 200, 250 years of history? Basically, with the this relative freedom of immigration throughout Europe, we ARE likely witnessing the end of the era of 'countries' or their homogeneity at least. They can be 'suchandsuch' on a map but the people will be like anybody from say, Illinois. Count me as being sad for the passing of that....
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Post by Philemon on Nov 5, 2004 15:18:12 GMT -5
Every european country ( Belgium for cryin'out loud !!)
had colonies back in the XIX century ...
WW I was essentialy a war fought for the possession/control of colonies throughout the world ...
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Post by RocDoc on Nov 5, 2004 15:31:26 GMT -5
Well, duh...but was Morocco ever a Dutch colony, ya Marrakesh-loving hippie?!  |
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Post by 1000feetpersecond on Nov 15, 2004 16:10:45 GMT -5
this is far too serious discussion for a room devoted to pantlessness.
and i helped co-create the original of this thing!
its good to be back. anyone seen lizzy?
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