Amsterdam is not Sodom & Gomorrah

NRC/international: A 25-year-old film student from Amsterdam has taken on Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly over his misrepresentation of the Dutch capital.

It is a much-belated response, but 25-year-old Robert Nieuwenhuijs' July 27 video reply to Fox News' description of Amsterdam as a "cesspool of corruption" has nevertheless become a hit on the video-sharing website YouTube.

[Robert Nieuwenhuijs] saw the show on YouTube and felt affronted by O'Reilly's Amsterdam-bashing. He decided to post a video reply on YouTube, calling it . He looked up numbers about drugs use from American and Dutch national surveys and made some striking comparisons.

Dit is echt zo geweldig gedaan!!! The truth about Amsterdam! Makes me proud to have been born there!



Cross posted with some edits at Antemedius and also at The Peace Tree. Hat tip to 24oranges.

Ben & Jerry's lets it drip, drip, drip

Who knew? Ben & Jerry's ice cream supported waterboarding?

Rick Wolff on TRNN: Worse is yet to come

Upswing in stocks comes from profits due to cutbacks and concessions, worse is yet to come. Rick Wolff is interviewed on The Real News Network:

Single Payer Activists

David Swanson in Antemedius:

Following a pattern of civil resistance in Washington D.C. and around the country, citizens in Des Moines Iowa on Monday risked arrest to press for the creation of single-payer healthcare, the establishment of healthcare as a human right, and an end to the deadly practices of Iowa's largest health insurance company, Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Dr. Margaret Flowers, who has herself gone to jail for single-payer in our nation's capital, was on hand to speak in Des Moines. She called me with this report. Nearly a month earlier, on June 19, 2009, Des Moines Catholic Workers had delivered a letter (PDF) to Wellmark addressed to its CEO John Forsyth requesting disclosure of Wellmark's profits, salaries, benefits, denials and restrictions on care. The letter had not been acknowledged by Monday, and the Catholic Workers and their allies decided to take action again.

Thirty people arrived in the Wellmark lobby in Des Moines and asked to see Forsyth or any of the members of the board of directors or the operating officers. They were told that none were available, and instead the police arrived. Nine of the 30 refused to leave and were arrested. Flowers did not yet know what the charges will be but suspected trespassing. The nine latest supporters of single-payer to go to jail for justice are:

Mona Shaw, Renee Espeland, Frankie Hughes (age 11), and Frank Cordaro, all from Des Moines Catholic Workers; Leonard Simmons from Massachusetts; Robert Cook; Eddie Blomer from Des Moines; Kirk Brown from Des Moines; and Chris Gaunt from Grinnell, Iowa.

These nine and others like them around the country represent, I think, the incredible potential to energize the American public on behalf of a struggle for the basic human right of healthcare, a potential being blocked by the work of activist organizations that reach out from Washington to tell the public that single-payer is not possible, rather than reaching into Washington from outside to tell our public servants what we demand.

Here's a blog from Digby acknowledging the reduction of the public option from where it started to next-to-nothing. It's not clear whether Digby thinks it would have been smarter to start with single-payer, in order to end up with a better compromise than what you get by initially proposing the weakest plan you'll settle for. But Digby argues that proposing single-payer from the start would not have given single-payer itself any chance of succeeding, and this is proven -- Digby says -- from the fact that the public option is having such a hard time succeeding.

I can't prove this is wrong. Everything Digby writes is smart and to the point. But this does omit an important factor or two. Namely: single-payer turns an obscure wonkish policy mush into a clear and comprehensible civil rights issue. Even with it blacked out and shunned by the White House and astroturfing activist groups, single-payer still has people sacrificing and going to jail for it. Nobody goes to jail for a public option.* Nobody even knows what it is. Nobody will even know whether they got it if a bill is passed until experts debate the point for them -- at which point it's too late. Making healthcare a right rather than a legislative policy energizes people, and that potential has hardly been tapped and should not be written out of consideration.

John Nichols understands this, as does Glen Ford from Black Agenda Report.

Sunday Morning Music: The Great Simone

Look out for him in 6 years

French teenager Charles Guislain has is already being idolized among the fashionistas. Confident, bold ideas, iconoclastic, even. Some would say it's just teenage bravado, but I don't think so. He comes across pretty unassuming, as he makes the rounds during Paris Fashion Week 2009:

Gospel Music Giant: Horace Boyer 1935-2009

From The Lead: Horace Boyer, editor of the Episcopal Hymnal, Lift Every Voice and Sing, a beloved musician who loved teaching others to sing with passion, enthusiasm and excellence, has died at age 74.

I found YouTube links to two songs featuring the Boyer Brother --



You can also listen to "Going Back To God"

Well, kiss my wooden shoes!

Yesterday, in a continuing series on Texas Weird, I made another Yee Haw! post .

I've decided to start a new BI series/commentary in the same vein - Well, kiss my wooden shoes! - with a Dutch Weird angle.

And here's the first installment.

News on the aftermath of Queen's Day 2009 tragedies doesn't seem go away. The story linked below is about victimhood. It's not a purely American phenomenon. In the story linked below, we learn that some Cloggies will go to great lengths to make a euro, make a euro. But this story goes beyond the stereotypical ambulance chaser, bringing it to new lows, for the actions of these people certainly do that.

From DutchNews.nl

TV viewers claim Queen's Day attack damages

Friday 24 July 2009

A number of people who watched tv and internet footage of the Queen's Day attack, in which Karst Tates drove his car through the crowd killing eight people, are attempting to claim damages, the AD reports on Friday.

The paper says insurance company Reaal and damages claim specialists SAP in Amersfoort have been approached by people who want to make a claim for the shocking effect of the footage. The attack, in which bodies are seen flying through the air, was broadcast live on tv.

A spokesman for Reaal refused to tell the paper how many claims had been received.

But VU University law professor Arno Akkermans told the paper: 'I have spoken to them [Reaal] about it. They say they have had many claims and are looking for advice how to deal with them.'

Lawyer Jan Wilem Koeleman from SAP told the paper: 'a number of clients have registered their intention to claim damages after seeing television and other coverage'.

But a spokesman for the Dutch victims support body Slachtofferhup said the claims were 'inappropriate' and have no hope of succeeding.

More Facebook shenanigans to benefit advertisers...

at the expense of members.

FACEBOOK have agreed to let third party advertisers use your posted pictures WITHOUT your permission. Click on SETTINGS up at the top where you see the Log out link. Select Privacy. Then select NEWSFEEDS and WALL. Next select the tab that reads FACEBOOK ADS. There is a drop down box, select NO ONE. Then SAVE your changes. (REPOST this on your profile to let your friends know!)

Shit, Facebook write that they "respect privacy rules," but make you jump all these loops to have it. It's all about make a buck, make a buck for the third party advertisers.

Power to the Honduran people...

RagING against the bank machine

My friend Krijn a.k.a. Karoline Online, the best and most popular drag artist (travesteit in Dutch) in Amsterdam, had been trying for a year to open up a private personal bank account at one of the largest Dutch banks. But INGbank has refused - they consider her profession like that of criminals and sexworkers. So, what did she do? Karoline contacted one of the biggest Dutch dailies - Telegraaf - to tell her story (Dutch).

And word is spreading about the discriminatory practice of the bank. Read it in Dutch here and here.

Karoline's photo, credit Tom Huis in 't Veld.

Yee Haw!

Another in BI's occasional posts about Texas Weird. I've always been troubled by the process of choosing school books in Texas. The Guardian runs a story about religious extremists' attempts further to control the curriculum.

[T]he issue is likely to lead to a heated political battle similar to the one in which the religious right tried to force creationism onto the curriculum. While it wasn't able to inject religious theories in to the classroom, the Texas school board did make changes to teaching designed to undermine lessons on evolution such as introducing views that the eye is so complex an organ it must have involved "intelligent design".
...
Other states will be watching what happens in Texas carefully as the religious right campaign seeks new ways to insert God in to the classroom after the courts limited the extent to which creationist theories could intrude on the teaching of biology. But religion is not kept out of schools entirely. Many children recite the pledge of allegiance in class each morning which includes a reference to the US as "one nation under God".

Insanity: What Israelis really think about the settlements, the U.S. and Obama

These astounding "person-on-the-street" interviews co-produced by Joseph Dana, Antony Lowenstein and David Jacobus in Jerusalem show shocking attitudes that just don't get exposure in the West, especially the U.S.

My LTE to Seven Days has been published

It was published today:

DUTCH TREAT
Since I have Dutch-American heritage, spent my kid-teen years in New Hampshire, and have an abiding love for the history and culture of the two countries, Kevin Kelley’s article was indeed a fascinating read [“Long Before Mexican Farm Workers, the Dutch Saved Addison County Dairying,” July 1]. He could have been describing many Dutch immigrants currently living in this country who came here at the same time as the families of the Addison County farmers. However, my Dutch father (he would have been 95 years old this year), married to an American in 1947 and naturalized in 1950, was atypical. He was left-leaning politically. He joined the Dutch merchant marine to escape the stifling atmosphere of the Netherlands and was glad to leave it there.

Unsurprisingly, the (Republican) farmers in the article frown on today’s Dutch society. But surely, the problems dealing with immigration, religion, culture and the effects of a global economy in the Netherlands are the same as we have in this country. My family recognized that neither country was perfect and was fascinated by the changes on return visits to friends and family in the “Old Country.” With typical Dutch stubbornness and unwavering arrogance, the immigrants described in your article cling to retrogressive traditions brought with them from Holland that are no longer sustainable, neither in 21st-century America nor in a vibrant, modern, innovative and multicultural Holland.

Vegan streaker 'planned to attack queen'

DutchNews.nl

Tuesday 21 July 2009

An animal rights activist known as the vegan streaker has been arrested on suspicion of planning to attack queen Beatrix, his lawyer Gerard Spong told the Volkskrant on Tuesday.

The public prosecution department said earlier that Peter Janssen is suspected of preparing an attack and possessing a gun. Two computers were taken from homes in Wissekerke and Vught, where the 24-year-old's mother lives.

Later the department said Janssen was suspected of planning to attack the queen because she regularly wears fur in public. The arrest followed 'extensive' testimony, the department said.

'We think the police took action on the basis of an anonymous, vague tip,' Spong told the paper. He pointed out that no gun was found during the search of the properties.

Janssen will appear in court on Wednesday.

Headlines

Janssen, who was arrested earlier this year for releasing 2,500 mink on a fur farm, first hit the headlines a year ago when he disrupted filming of the Paul de Leeuw tv show, wearing only underpants.

He has also been caught streaking at the ABN Amro tennis tournament, a Champions Trophy hockey match and the Tilburg Ten Mile road race.

[Photo Peter Janssen a.k.a. the Vegan Streaker - credit ANP/Telegraaf]

Frank McCourt, R.I.P. - "I was put on this earth to write."

Everybody says follow your dream, or Joseph Campbell would say, "Follow your bliss." You have to. If it's deep enough, and authentic and profound and genuine, that's where you have to go. If you want to put on the collar of a clergyman, go and put it on. If you want to be a barefooted monk in the Himalayas, that's what you have to do. If you want to be a housewife, that's what you have to do. Because nature -- I know, I found out eventually why I was put on this earth. I was put on this earth to write. And as Thomas Carlyle said, "Happy is the man who has found his work." So I'm happy, and I hope everybody else finds that, too. - Frank McCourt, teacher & author, August 19, 1930 - July 19, 2009

The Gospel Imperative to Reconcile

Pluralist gives us the low-down post-General Convention 2009:

The seeking of reconciliation is on a far larger canvas than some bureaucratic religious arrangement. It certainly is about people and about bringing the larger society and its prejudices to be reconciled and healed with a group of people who have, for so long, been outside the acceptable and the unwelcomed.

Like Resolution D025 The Episcopal Church has recovered in C056 what it sees as this Gospel imperative, and yet done so whilst admitting the disagreement over the matter and the discernment that is still to go on. C056 is even more careful than D025, in that it is really about the gathering of liturgical resources for presentation to the next General Covention in three years time. Such is a long time to wait for any approved liturgy for same sex couples.

It baffles me that you can have pet blessing services here and there without as much as a murmur, drawing on some of the margins (or at best the often ignored) of the Christian tradition, but you cannot have blessings of gay and lesbian couples without causing a huge fuss. If that isn't an ongoing need for sorting out priorities and reconciliation, then I am at a loss for understanding such an imperative. Thus individuals in places seeking blessings should surely receive them, whilst a Church gathers such efforts up and sees what could be possible, relevant rites for such blessings.

But, of course, some are obsessed with Church bureaucracies for the sake of them, even when they don't exist. Again, if there is such a Communion structure that does not want to involve a Church that looks to bless loving relationships in all its structures, then go ahead and be excluding (as an institutional symbol of exclusion, not reconciliation at all): and it may just be an opportunity for those more organic and friendly means of establishing relationships to reassert themselves over the ambitions of the bureaucratic empire builders.

Daily Reading

From Speaking to the Soul

Daily Reading for July 20 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Ross Tubman

These slaves from Maryland were the last that Harriet Tubman piloted out of the prison-house of bondage, and these “came through great tribulation.” Stephen, the husband, had been a slave of John Kaiger, who would not allow him to live with his wife (if there was such a thing as a slave’s owning a wife). She lived eight miles distant, hired her time, maintained herself, and took care of her children (until they became of service to their owner), and paid ten dollars a year for her hire. She was owned by Algier Pearcy. Both mother and father desired to deliver their children from his grasp. They had too much intelligence to bear the heavy burdens thus imposed without feeling the pressure a grievous one.

Harriet Tubman being well acquainted in their neighborhood, and knowing of their situation, and having confidence that they would prove true, as passengers on the Underground Rail Road, engaged to pilot them within reach of Wilmington, at least to Thomas Garrett’s. Thus the father and mother, with their children and a young man named John, found aid and comfort on their way, with Harriet for their “Moses.” A poor woman escaping from Baltimore in a delicate state, happened to meet Harriet’s party at the station, and was forwarded on with them. They were cheered with clothing, food, and material aid, and sped on to Canada.

Notes taken at that time were very brief; it was evidently deemed prudent in those days, not to keep as full reports as had been the wont of the secretary, prior to 1859. The capture of John Brown’s papers and letters, with names and plans in full, admonished us that such papers and correspondence as had been preserved concerning the Underground Rail Road, might perchance be captured by a pro-slavery mob. For a year or more after the Harper’s Ferry battle, as many will remember, the mob spirit of the times was very violent in all the principal northern cities, as well as southern (“to save the Union”). Even in Boston, Abolition meetings were fiercely assailed by the mob. During this period, the writer omitted some of the most important particulars in the escapes and narratives of fugitives. Books and papers were sent away for a long time, and during this time the records were kept simply on loose slips of paper.

From The Underground Railroad: A Record Of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters, &C., Narrating The Hardships, Hair-Breadth Escapes And Death Struggles Of The Slaves In Their Efforts For Freedom, As Related By Themselves And Others, Or Witnessed By The Author, by William Still (1872).
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15263/15263-h/15263-h.htm

Howard Dean, M.D. Supports the War Drug

JUAN GONZALEZ: In terms of the—to get back again to other issues right now, I’d like to ask you about the continuation and expansion of the American war in Afghanistan. Do you have concerns about—that this is becoming really President Obama’s war—

HOWARD DEAN: It is.

JUAN GONZALEZ: —and the impact on our country in the future?

HOWARD DEAN: Look, again, you know—and I don’t have to say anything nice; I’m not in the administration. But I’m with Obama on his conduct of the war. I always said, when I was running against the Iraq war, that Afghanistan was different.

Let me tell you what the stakes are now. And what I find incredibly refreshing about this president is he uttered words that Lyndon Johnson never said, which is that we cannot win this war militarily. He knows that from the get-go. Here’s what’s at stake. It’s not just the Taliban. I think we could probably control the Taliban and the al-Qaeda in the Northwest territories by doing some of the things we’re already doing—drones and air power and so forth. Roughly 50 percent of the Afghan people are women. They will be condemned to conditions which are very much like slavery and serfdom in a twelfth century model of society where they have no rights whatsoever. So, I’m not saying we have to invade every country that doesn’t treat women as equal, but we’re there now. We have a responsibility. And if we leave, women will experience the most extraordinary depredations of any population on the face of the earth. I think we have some obligation to try and see if we can make this work, not just for America and our security interests, but for the sake of women in Afghanistan and all around the globe. Is this acceptable to treat women like this? I think not.

AMY GOODMAN: We just interviewed an Afghan parliamentarian, Dr. Wardak. She said the opposite. She said, yes, she agrees with you on the way women are treated, but that this is worsening the treatment, that the increased number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan, the huge number of troops that are coming in right now, are alienating the Afghan population.

The above is an extract from an interview last week on Democracy Now! with Howard Dean, former Governor of Vermont and establishment Democratic celebrity. It was also included in a post at Ten Percent, which I also recommend to BI readers for further context on the escalating, brutal war in Afghanistan.

Cross posted at Antimedius and The Peace Tree.

Photo: Ghazni protest in February against an attack on civilians by coalition forces.

Marching in the Light: IntegriTV Wraps up General Convention 2009

"How can you initiate someone and then treat them like they're half-assed baptised?"- The Rt. Rev. Barbara Harris, Suffragan Bishop of Massachusetts (Retired) - the first woman bishop in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion - preaching at the Integrity Eucharist, General Convention, July 11 2009, Anaheim, CA