Hail Jack Bauer

I'm not a Wienerite but '24' is very much art. No, not the script, which is nothing we haven't seen before - just more of it compressed into a smaller timeframe. But anyone who has ever handled a camera can do nothing but admire the brilliant cinematography which is more innovative than anything I've seen since Armageddon (feel free to disagree with me, but anyone who can shoot a coherent if highly contentless movie with shots that have an average length of 1.5 seconds is innovative to me). I'm not sure how many takes they have to do for every scene, but it seems like an absolute nightmare to direct/film/edit this kind of stuff. Add to that the minimalist music, which is not exceptional but nevertheless exceptionally effective, and you get the best thriller series ever. Period.

(Oh, and on a less than intellectual level: does anybody else think Jack finally got some well-deserved recognition (from Audrey, from Derek, and from CTU) in Monday's episode?)

13:55

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Not my lucky number after all

Didn't get the house I applied for. Oh well. I'll spend my money on women, booze and cigarettes then. Will have to learn to smoke though.

20:35

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On bedtime stories for mass murderers

I'm not going to join into the William Blum condemnation choir, because others have voiced their criticism of Mr. Blum much more eloquently than I ever could. Instead, I'm wondering why hardly anyone in the blogosphere seems to have recognized the importance of Osama Bin Laden referring to an American author to back up his hatred of the United States.

Some may find this disturbing. I think it's comforting. The West, for all its flaws, is still its own worst critic. For all our internal differences, perhaps we can agree that our openness to intellectual self-flagellation is something to cherish. The very fact that we have a word for 'hubris', and that it got its current meaning, hopefully will prevent us succumbing to it.

(But I've been accused of being a delusional optimist before.)

11:55

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Numbers

I'm not trying to sound like a bad episode of Lost here, but the number 13 has been rather instrumental to my life. Literally. I was born on Friday the 13th, 1975. According to family lore, the superstitious nurse wanted to change my date of birth into Thursday the 12th, since I was born only fifteen (or is that thirteen?) minutes after midnight. My protestant father wanted none of it. One day I'll release a book full of jokes about Friday the 13th. Lord knows I've heard enough of them. Thanks, dad.

Anyway, the number keeps on popping up. Now I've registered to buy a house in Amsterdam (it's this one, in case you're interested). As is often the case with new houses in Amsterdam, they are distributed through a lottery system. I got my ticket number in the mail yesterday. No prizes for guessing what it is.

11:36

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OK, I take it all back

Not all French are cheese eating surrender monkeys. Here's Chirac with some statements on the use of nuclear weapons (that's "nucular" for Republicans) that Bush could never have made without having been branded as a genocidal maniac.

17:31

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On Pim Fortuyn

I sent someone the following reply after he'd sent me an article in which (yet again) a journalist thinks the Netherlands have gone 'right-wing' because of Pim Fortuyn. I heartily disagree:

Fortuyn didn't do anything. He just made apparent what was already there: civil discontent on a massive scale. The populist sentiment is that Moroccan youngsters get government support to fund a place to get together and harass the neighbourhood from, but any other citizen will be fined 50 euros if he takes out his trash an hour early. That's a good way to sow discontent with the natives. It is not the fault of immigrants, but of our politicians, and Fortuyn dared to say so, because he wasn't one of them. Likewise, the current problems with 'about a 100 or so' kids (mainly Moroccans) who terrorize neighbourhoods in Amsterdam are not the sole fault, imho, of those Moroccans. In the USA these guys would have been locked up. Here, the police dare not intervene in case the situation 'escalates'. Guess what: it already has. But the Dutch fear of bringing problems out into the open (we have a compromise culture in which we like to solve problems by debating them ad nauseam) - because we would need several massive standoffs with these thugs before they'd be subdued - has created passivity by which the thugs feel empowered, and the average Dutchman feels abandoned (and the average Moroccan immigrant as well, for he gets rejected time and time again at job interviews because of the racism that has sprung up after years of the police not having dealt with his, er, less ambitious fellow immigrants). That's why Fortuyn was succesful. Not because he was smart, although he was. Not because he gave bigots someone to vote for - just check the statistics on the huge number of immigrants that voted for him! And not because he was a good politician, because he wasn't. But because he dared to spell out the problems, which are of our own making.

This would also be my response to the current unrest in the city. If mayor Job Cohen is finally meaning business, I'll applaud his actions. But unlike Pieter I am sceptical it's anything other than yet more talk.

12:40

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I'm all for shooting terrorists...

...but you might want save your bullets just for them, rather than your allies:

US commanders were so worried that their men were shooting at the British because they failed to recognise the Union Jack or other distinguishing military markings that, in an unprecedented move, they asked the British Army to supply vehicles, men and flags to teach their soldiers what their allies looked like.

A British officer in Basra said: “The Americans can be pretty pumped-up. Sometimes they fire in broad daylight when we are travelling at two miles per hour, shouting that we are British out of the window and waving the Union Jack. If they shoot, our drill is to slam on the brakes and race in the opposite direction.”

Hey, here's lesson 1: the Union Jack.

12:36

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Who not to vote for in the forthcoming elections

In March we'll have city council elections, which in the Netherlands generally take place simultaneously in all municipalities. Now the right of centre CDA (Christian Democrats) have announced that they want to ban 'hate speech'. Also, they'll push for a faster prohibition of political parties that have the wrong kind of agenda.

Typical Dutch authoritarianism: solve a problem by creating more restrictions. I'd rather have 'extremists' compete for their share of the voters in the marketplace of ideas, where their bigotry is in the open for everyone to see, but I guess that's too much to ask from a party that has always believed in a government ruling over the people, rather than in a government by the people.

13:02

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On being British

So of course, at the same day Dutch public television airs a tearjerking report about Somalian refugees that fled the Netherlands to go and live in Leicester where they can be themselves (i.e. by not learning the local language), unlike in nasty and intolerant Holland, Blair's about-to-be-successor makes this statement (or will), which of course goes unreported on Dutch PBS:

"The English language, he will say, should be made an essential element of citizenship, through mandatory language courses for jobseekers found wanting."

I'm wondering if the Somalian family will now flee British tyranny back to the Netherlands, where there's an entire village working for PBS that should be happy to make them feel right at home, whatever it takes.

Anyway, enough jesting.

Unlike most Dutch, I don't feel it should be obligatory to learn our language. Hey, it's a free country. I do feel, however, that if you refuse to do so (note: being unable to is a different matter), you should not be entitled to welfare or other support by the state, as such a refusal seriously diminishes your chances of being able to provide for yourself since most employers will need - or at least prefer - an employee that speaks the lingua franca. If you can get by without learning Dutch, fine. If you can't, don't expect the natives, whose language you want no part of, to pay your way.

Brown goes on to make some excellent points about appreciating national identity, a theme which has become somewhat contaminated in Europe ever since a few idiots in Italy and Germany made a big mess out of things. I've argued before that you can't expect immigrants to appreciate their host country if they're not even sure what that country is supposed to stand for, and if citizenship ceremonies have all the flair and excitement of a fishing licence being issued. There's no need to haul out the brown shirts, I hope, to appreciate that version of nationalism. And at the very least, Brown doesn't seem to think so.

In his speech Mr Brown will embrace the patriotism of the US, saying: "In any survey our most popular institutions range from the monarchy to the army to the NHS. But think: what is our Fourth of July? What is our Independence Day? Where is our declaration of rights? What is our equivalent of a flag in every garden? Perhaps Remembrance Day and Remembrance Sunday are the nearest we have come to a British day - unifying, commemorative, dignified and an expression of British ideas of standing firm for the world in the name of liberty."

The Dutch have one advantage over the Brits, fortunately (other than having beaten them in nearly all naval engagements, but let bygones be bygones). At least we've won our independence, unlike the Brits, which we annually celebrate by sending a large percentage of our population to the Spanish costas to harass the locals. Serves them right for having occupied us.

23:11

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Leaving Las Vegas

Pictures of my trip to the CES in Las Vegas can be found here.

17:05

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Setup or stupidity?

Update January 16, 16.17: Why is it that people who have reasonable points to make are afraid of seeing those points published on this website? I received an email of someone who I won't name stating that Jan Tromp is not anti-American. I can't look inside Mr. Tromp's head, but since I know and respect the person who emailed me about it, I'll have to take his word for it. No insult was intended, and I apologize if it was interpreted as such. Nevertheless, I stand by my assessment that most of Mr. Tromp's articles seem - well - very America-sceptical to me (and that's an understatement), up to the point that they reminded me of the old (and not entirely true anymore) joke about de Volkskrant, his newspaper: wrap a cucumber in it and you'll end up with a gherkin.

Then again, that's why I asked the question in the first place. Journalists are people too. If the things they've written in the past make readers (in this case: me) suspicious of their motives now, then open source journalism would be a valuable tool to help validate their articles, both for their own sakes and for the sake of the appreciation of journalism as a profession. Mind you, our credibility rating is plummeting faster than that of lawyers. Journalists can either blame the customer, or become more open to scrutiny themselves.

Update Sunday, January 15, 18.36: I've since received an email alerting me to the fact that Tromp was probably right with his interview, meaning I should retract this post. Since this article asks a question, and does not come to any conclusions but considers the possibility of stupidity on the part of Bremer as well (which turns out to have been the case), I find that hard to do so other than in the way I already did in the comments. Journalists question the motives of politicians every day, and rightly so. The motives of journalists should be subjected to at least as much scrutiny (yes, mine included). Also, I am not sure why I should retract my comments with regard to Tromp - although I admit I could have done offered some case history to better illustrate my claim that he's less than neutral when it comes to reporting about the USA.

The article was intended to be a claim for more openness. Knowing journalism from the inside I am aware that we are, in fact, capable of producing sloppy and/or biased work. Suspicions about those biases often remain just that: they're hard, if not impossible, to prove without a long investigation which in effect will be useless since any results, if they surface at all, won't be forthcoming until long after the issue the article dealt with has ceased to be of importance.

I have long been bothered by the fact that especially in Dutch journalism, where no fact checkers are employed, publishing your notes or even releasing a tape of the interview often only takes place after a huge public uproar. In the system of checks and balances we're unbalanced and definitely not checked. There's open source software; there's open source science. Perhaps it's time for open source journalism as well.

Original article
Jan Tromp is a vitriolic anti-American reporter, stationed in the USA by de Volkskrant, a left-wing newspaper. So it was with considerable amazement when today's edition of de Volkskrant featured an interview by Tromp with Paul Bremer, former governor of Iraq. In it, Bremer supposedly threatens the Netherlands with sanctions if the Dutch don't send more troops to Afghanistan. (An abridged English version can be found here.)

If this is true, it's an incredibly stupid move. It would be undiplomatic, if not ungrateful, to try to force the Dutch parliament into anything. Mind you, the Dutch already have SpecOps in combat roles in Afghanistan. We also had troops in Iraq, who stayed on longer than the official commitment. If Bremer is really trying to blackmail the Dutch into anything, the effect will be exactly the opposite. (If any Americans out there fail to understand this, try imagining the French trying to coerce *you* into something - your heels will be in the sand before you can say 'croque monsieur' or 'freedom fries'. No country worth its salt likes to be told what to do.)

Then again, this is de Volkskrant. If red printing ink were cheaper, they'd use it (and if it were only slightly more expensive, probably too). Coming from Jan Tromp, I smell a setup. Paraphrasing quotes is quite common in the Netherlands. Subsequently, so is the practice of interviewees demanding to read the article before it is published. In America and the UK, vetting articles is often anathema. Therefore, I think it's unlikely Bremer took a look at the article before it was published.

De Volkskrant and Tromp will have known in advance that this article would only serve to further strengthen the case of those who are against the new deployment. And although politicians in The Hague might consider the source of this article, it still gives them an excuse to say 'no' when the issue comes to a vote, somewhere in February.

The solution to this predicament is clear. If there's a tape of the interview, de Volkskrant should publish it. If not, Bremer should make an unequivocal statement. If he said this, he should apologize. If he didn't, Jan Tromp should. The issue of sending Dutch soldiers into a combat zone is too important to be resolved through propaganda.

16:14

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Happy New Year

So after the obligatory best wishes (best wishes!) I'd really like to ask you about what's in store for you this year. And I'm not talking your plans to quit smoking/be nicer to your dog/finally divorce that **** ******* **** (m/f).

Just to get you started: a friend of mine is off to Guatemala in a probably highly successful attempt to bankrupt himself. And I've got some interesting choices to face as well:

• Will I finally write a novel... I've always wanted to write fiction, but thusfar I've been too scared to make the attempt. In 2004, I told my publisher I would write a novel after my second nonfiction book had been finished. So it seems I've run out of excuses, now that I've finished three nonfiction books and contributed to a fourth.
• ...and if so, will I write it in English? My books are doing quite well - for Dutch standards. The average book in the Netherlands, I'm told, sells 800 (!) copies. I've had no trouble exceeding that (many times over) thusfar. That's nonfiction. Writing a novel in Dutch is a recipe for poverty. Then again, I am not a native speaker of English, so I'd need a subeditor. Preferably someone with a working knowledge of Dutch, a sense of humor, and an intimate knowledge of the neurotic behavior any journalist is bound to display from time to time. Any takers?

20:06

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