Sison, Dati and a pretty hectic day

Today was the kind of day where it's so busy things start falling through the cracks.

First there was another protest in front of the courthouse where Philippine communist leader/academic Jose Maria Sison is being held.

(Si-son Vrij! means Free Sison! The man with the megaphone is Luis Jalandoni, and the woman in white is Sison's wife Julie. She has bruises on her wrists where she says the Dutch police grabbed her during the raids; she's not being allowed to see her husband).

Then the French Justice Minister Rachida Dati popped over to check out a Dutch asylum for the criminally insane _ because maybe they want to adopt the Dutch system for recidivist sex criminals. This is a big story in France that no one else cares much about. She spoke French likety-splitly at this press conference.

(sorry for the red eyes, Ms. Dati. I'm still not much of a photographer).

Then there was a ruling in the Sison case, that he can be held for another two weeks.

I'm very, very curious to see the evidence against Sison, and now I have to wonder why the judge is keeping him in solitary confinement. The public prosecutors aren't saying anything about their evidence. That's normal, but the track record of the government isn't great in proving criminal organizations, much less "chain of command" cases.

But basically, we will know nothing for the next two weeks at least.

The news coming from the lawyer is very one sided: he says there was "no evidence" against Sison, but it says something that the judges thought it was enough to hold him anyway.

Having met the man, I will be very surprised if he said anything out loud that could get him into trouble. Various members of the NDF here told stories of how the Dutch police burst into their houses, breaking down the doors. One guy said his kids were like "sheesh, all they had to do was knock."


(I thought it would be cute to see the demonstration from the eyes of the people holding the banners).

Meanwhile, Ms. Dati came through to check out the Dutch system of holding criminals who commit crimes like rape or pedophilia in mental hospitals until they are considered cured _ even if the cure lasts longer then their prison sentence.

It's ironic that the French would consider adopting this system, since it's been one of the number one most criticized policies in the Netherlands in the past five years: prisoners keep escaping supervision while on furlough and committing crimes (rape, murder, you name it).

But that's politics.
MORE

Sison Arrest Protest + Jalandoni

Luis Jalandoni, chairman of the National Democratic Front, despised by the Philippine government.

The protest against the arrest of former (current?) Philippine communist rebel leader Jose Maria Sison today on the Dam was a little surreal.

At the heart of the Dutch capital city, you have a small group of leftists who feel a great injustice has been done by the government of the Netherlands.

On the other side of the world, in the Philippines, the government is celebrating Sison´s arrest, and the rebels there are, well, up in arms.

Meanwhile, Amsterdam rolls on, and you have tourists wandering around the scene, completely oblivious to it all.



Even a scrawny Darth Vader had to turn around to see what was going on.




I've stumbled across a few protests in my day and wondered what the heck they were all about. I certainly can't claim to be an expert on the 39 year (that's "thirty-nine") communist rebellion in the Philippines. It predates me.

I can tell you that whatever else Sison (who I met in 2005) and Jalandoni may be, they are both intellectuals.

This energetic young speaker,

Chico Taguba, of "Rice and Rights," represents the next generation of activists.

"As long as there is oppression, there will always be resistance," he said.

N´est pas?
MORE

MabelGate Redux, Thanks to WikiScanner

UPDATE: The IHT has the official story. I wudn't have posted this blog entry if I thought AP wanted it...

xxxxx

Original post:

Ah, it warms my heart to see 1,000 scandals bloom. The new Wikiscanner, created by some young genius at CalTech, can be used to trace the IP address of any computer that makes changes to Wikipedia, revealing bad-acting editors around the world.

It has already shamed WalMart, the CIA, the BBC, the Australian government, and now Mabel Wisse Smit, known to the Dutch media primarily for "Mabelgate."

Mabel was set to marry Prince Friso, which would have put the couple and their spawn second in line to the Dutch throne after Friso's big brother Willem Alexander and his brood.

But after a television program by crime reporter Peter Paul "Tintin" De Vries unearthed details of her college relationship with a known drugs baron (Klaas Bruinsma, who stopped smoking in 1991), the prime minister said he couldn't sign off on the marriage because the pair had given him "incomplete and incorrect information."

They ended up getting married in 2004 anyway, but had to relinquish any claim to the throne.

The Wikipedia entry on "Mabelgate" reported what they gave the prime minister Balkenende as "incomplete and false information," but the entry was changed twice to remove the word "false" by a computer whose IP address can now be traced to a Dutch palace. Whoops.

The couple quickly 'fessed up. Not much point in denying changing your Wikipedia entry when you've already confessed to misleading the prime minister...


I think there's much, much more dirt where this came from. Better dirt too, though of course falsifying a Wikipedia entry is not a crime.

What Dutch corporations and or institutions are likely to have changed their entries? I can think of about a dozen...

What about, say, Trafigura? Not purely a hypothetical idea. I'm open to suggestions...
MORE

Noah's Ark

Noah's Ark sailed through Amsterdam last night, and I went out to practice my photo-taking chops. You never know when it's going to come in handy.

Let me tell you, taking night photos is not easy: if you use the flash, it looks like day, and if you use a slow shutter speed, the image blurs.

But I guess the photographers out there already know this.

Oh yeah, I didn't misspeak. Noah's Ark: an earlier story.


(note plastic giraffe sticking up from prow).

Johan Huibers, a man of energy and vision. The live animals never materialized, but I thought this story deserved more attention than it got. AP tried again, but it still never really caught on...

MORE

Happiness

(photo by Flickr user Jonnybaker)

The AP has a story on happiness, via USA today, complete with inappropriate photo provided by Agence France Press.

Whatever sells papers...

Follow this, if you can. Does money matter?

Wealth counts, but most studies of individuals show income disparities count more. Surprisingly, however, citizens are no happier in welfare states, which strive to mitigate the distortions of capitalism than in purer free-market economies.

"In the beginning, I didn't believe my eyes," said Veenhoven of his data. "Icelanders are just as happy as Swedes, yet their country spends half what Sweden does (per capita) on social welfare," he said.

To me, the most surprising thing is that kids don't help happiness. That makes me wonder about whether there's any real science to these methodologies.


(Photo by Flickr user Photoplasia).

U.S. researchers have found other underlying factors: married people are more content than singles, but having children does not raise happiness levels; education and IQ seem to have little impact; attractive people are only slightly happier than the unattractive; the elderly — over 65 — are more satisfied with their lives than the young; friendships are crucial.

But the research also shows that many people are simply disposed to being either happy or disgruntled, and as much as 50% of the happiness factor is genetic. Like body weight, moods can swing only so much from their natural "set point."

So can you do anything about it? Some educators say you can.

Color me, at least in private, a skeptic.



MORE