Monkeys: Misanthropic or Misunderstood?

(photo:thomas lu)

"We can deal with mad bulls but monkeys are more difficult"

-New Delhi deputy police commissioner Jaspal Singh, as quoted by AFP.

I feel it is my duty to remark upon the spate of yellow journalism that has been denigrating the noble race of monkeys in recent days.

It began with an Agence France Presse article titled "Monkeys rampage in Indian capital", which quickly scaled Yahoo's "Most Viewed" charts, prompting the other agencies to respond.

"In land of the Monkey God, a primate menaces," Reuters blared.

To the AP's credit, it has a slightly more factual story, "Monkey Injures Several People in India," avoiding the dubious claim repeated by other agencies that a single monkey had hurt more than 2 dozen people.

Today the New York Times got into the act, two days late and with 1,000 words _ the words not worth the picture. At that length, the NYT is more a magazine than a newspaper...

All the stories are basically anthropocentric, species-ist and humanist in their outlook: people are good, and monkeys bad. People are valuable, monkeys are a nuisance.

And, aiming at the lowest common denominator, all make sure to mention prominently the death of New Delhi's vice mayor last month.

Trouble boiled over in late October when the city's deputy mayor, Sawinder Singh Bajwa, 52, fell to his death driving away monkeys from his home.

He was on his balcony reading a newspaper when four monkeys appeared, his family said. As he waved a stick to scare them away, he tumbled over the edge and died in hospital from head injuries.

-AFP

Tragic, surely. I pray that I don't die in some humiliating manner.
But no one dares to point out the obvious: if this guy weren't going after the monkeys with a stick, he'd be alive today.

In fact, none of the stories makes more than a passing effort to think about things from the monkeys' point of view.

(peter garnhum)



(mr. huevo)

Estimates for the city's monkey population in all four stories range from 5,000 to 25,000.

Well, I estimate New Delhi's human population at 14 million, and growing at the rate of 1/2 million per year. Who is overbreeding here?

A telling detail is included in the final sentence of the AFP story:

"Kartick Satyanarayanan, head of India's Wildlife SOS, said the invasion of natural habitats by mushrooming populations was at the root of the problem.
"Humans are taking all their space."

It's only natural for monkeys to strike back. In fact, rumor has it, the latest altercations are part of the monkey's "Take Back New Delhi" campaign, in which all the humans will ultimately be put in cages and be moved to neighboring Mumbai.

The monkeys are a nuisance, but please, don't insult my intelligence by suggesting that they can compete with say, pollution, on the list of troubles that New Delhi faces.

The other thing these stories do is mock Hinduism, the world's oldest surviving religion, in which monkeys are considered holy.

The AFP says that "along with sacred cows and buffaloes, marauding monkeys have been longstanding pests."

Efforts to drive out the animals is complicated by the fact that devout Hindus view them as an incarnation of Hanuman, the monkey god who symbolizes strength.

Devout Hindus? As opposed to lax Hindus, who cook and eat the monkeys? New Delhi is more than 80 percent Hindu.

There's a reason Hindus worship monkeys!

Monkeys are pure comedy gold. Always have been, always will be.

Praise Hanuman!

And please, keep me up to date about any important monkey news or comedy you come across...

(stephen butler)
(stephen butler)
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Mobile Marijuana Plantations Hidden Inside Trucks

(photo and others from website www.wietforum.nl)

This is the Dutch equivalent of what people in the United States would call "the can-do spirit." Over here they call it the "VOC mentaliteit" _ (meaning, Far East Indies Company entrepreneurialism. The acronym is still a household word in Holland four centuries later).

The photos show a truck that's been converted to a mobile weed plantation.



Here's the link to "Weed Forum," which has more photos, but it's Dutch language.

Credit to Dutch blog GeenStijl for finding the thread. They said that the truck used generators on its axles to power the lights, but people reacting to the post dispute that.

To be honest I can't tell exactly what's going on on the website _ it sounds like the guy that posted the photos was a cop (?) who helped bust the plantation (?). It was in the Dutch city of Heerenveen, anyway, in the north.

The post reads:

"Back to Heerenveen again last night.
At 6 a.m. I got a call for two trailers and a ready-to-go container. When I got there it appeared not only was there a container standing there that was completely converted to 'igrowbox', but also there was another one next to it set up as cutting room.
Two warehouses further there were two trailers with 1,200 plants and in that space there was another, more professional cutting room set up where we found 3 kilos plus. Photos upcoming."

And then he gives some of the specs of the lighting systems, etc.

The best line was one of the reactions: "I can't believe they're deconstructing this. It belongs in a museum."

Other posters are saying stuff like, 'Ah, the electricity systems could be better arranged' (with apparently no irony!).

Now, people who don't get the nuances of Dutch drugs policy may be wondering, why on Earth are they going to all this trouble when weed is legal in the Netherlands?




The answer of course, is that weed isn't legal here. It's illegal but not prosecutable for possession of amounts of up to 5 grams (and in practice much more).

To me, this story highlights one of the most interesting _ actually the most interesting _ part of the Dutch tolerance policy. By some incredible paradoxical logic they tolerate the sale of weed, but bust the growers.

So you have a mega industry _ "coffee shops" _ who have no way to legally source their main product.

And someone will inevitably service them, because there's money to be made. That's basic market theory. The VOC spirit leads to small plantations being built in residential neighborhoods, (causing fire hazards), greenhouses, warehouses, and, apparently, trucks and shipping containers.

A majority of the previous parliament was in favor of decriminalizing growers. That would have solved a lot of problems, notably the question of what chemicals are being used in intensive growing facilities.

But it was shot down because the government feared (rightly) that tolerating both growers and sellers would be seen by the international community as outright legalization, which would give NL problems with both Brussels and Washington.

Now things are back in limbo, with the political right dreaming of criminalization (good luck) and left dreaming of legalization (not until other countries start seeing things the same way).

(this is called 'igrow keet' by the poster. I'm not sure what that means, but those are obviously buds undergoing some kind of processing.)
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Total Eclipse of the Heart

I'm embarrassed to say I just realized I can embed YouTube videos on my blog, which is going to have some implications for my Dylan Project.

Anyhow, just in case there was anybody out there hasn't seen this, it's a classic, good for a little Saturday night Dada:





The band is called "Hurra Torpedo."
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DOOMSDAY!

(photo:cretinous hippy)
The end is nigh, says some British wacko ("Piers Corbyn") who studies sunspots and solar flares, or something like that. I won't dignify him with a link.

The basic idea is, an enormous storm will strike Northern Europe Nov. 24-28, causing devastating floods in the Netherlands.

A formerly respectable Dutch TV weather man called Piet Paulusma is buying it. I have to admit I've never heard of him before, but then, he works for SBS6 and that's not typically my 'go-to' station for news.

Paulsma's (Dutch language) blog, which I also won't dignify with a link:

By mid-month "an expanding depression will develop over the Atlantic Ocean due to tropical air. At its edges, disturbances will form, and a very active cold front. The result is a phenomenon that can be described as a superstorm; an instance that will be bigger than the storm of 1987 and that of 1703."

And then 200kph winds, Anne Frank's tree is toast, the Delta Works crumble, zombies moan and gibber in the streets, dogs and cats start living together peacefully.

All this with an 80 percent chance, which leaves Corbyn and Paulsma with what can best be termed "an easy 'out'" when it all fails to materialize.

(photo:sweejak; painting:"The Wreck")

I for one am very worried about Holland flooding. Always have been, ever since I came, even before global warming was recognized as a real big deal.

My primary issues:
a) if we're below sea level and it rains too much, how do they get all the water to drain out to the sea in time?
b) I know the dunes and dikes are strong, yadda yadda yadda, but WHAT IF there's a break? Pretty hard to plug a breach in a sea dike. And there's more water in the sea than you might think.

(no credit necessary due to annoying imprint on picture)



Now you wouldn't think this story would have ever made it off Corbyn's website, let alone Paulsma's, but in this country, the weather is always news.

Or at least, that's what the editors think, so the story's been widely distributed.

The Royal Dutch Weather Institute trotted out somebody to point out that nobody can predict weather more than 10 days in advance (see: The Butterfly Effect)

Institute expert Cees Molenaars was widely quoted as saying "This is scaring people unnecessarily, and that's dangerous."

However, Paulsma (who has gotten a generous helping of free publicity out of this already) shot back by digging up an old post from the KNMI's website in which they discuss the possibility of a "superstorm."

"Very unusual circumstances, in which two storm depressions combine, can lead to superstorms. Superstorms are characterized by unheard of wind speeds and very extreme downpours.
They've never been recorded in our region. (But) climate models show that they can now in principle occur above the North Atlantic Ocean. Due to the greenhouse effect on the upper atmosphere, the area where they happen can be shifted in the direction of Europe. The Netherlands, too, could then experience this.
The shortcomings of our current climate models also mean that we can't determine the chance of such a shift very well."

Touche!

(photo:daily mail)

However, I don't need to channel the Oracle of Amsterdam to tell you it's not happening.
I'll put my money where my mouth is: I'm offering all comers 10-1 odds that there's not a single gust of wind above 100kph measured in "De Bilt" (the Dutch weather service's chief measuring station, near Utrecht) during Nov. 24-28.

(photo of new orleans flooding:nola.com)

(photo:Johanna)
Hey! Keep your eyes on the sign!
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Dutch government spying on GPD press agency, GeenStijl had warned the agency

(photo:moriza)

The AP has a story about alleged spying by the Dutch government on a Dutch press agency, GPD. I for one am shocked by this (if true).

Minister Piet Hein Donner sent a letter to parliament confirming the essence of the accusation — that several employees in his ministry's communications department had been accessing the GPD network since mid-2006.

-AP


But I wanted to translate what I consider a classic letter that the Dutch language "GeenStijl" blog sent the GPD way back in 2003 _ for the pleasure of all non-Dutch out there.

This is just in fun, so GeenStijl and GPD, please don't sue me.

Without further ado, here it is:

PLEASE CONFIRM RECEIPT AND ANSWER DIRECTLY.

Dear GPD,

Hereby, a very important disclosure: Your website, and all connected systems, are as leaky as a basket. LEAKY as LEAKY can be, LEAKY!

We make www.geenstijl.nl, a weblog. In the whole history of our existence, we have never seen such a shameless excuse for a web site as yours.

Just with a little creative surfing, all your internal hard drives are vulnerable. I don't know where to begin, there are so many holes in your system.

God knows how a professional news organization like yours could have left all its systems open, probably for years! Not a single safety update has ever been installed, and there's no password to keep out someone who bears you ill will. We're not talking about cracks that could be exploited by advanced hackers, but ENORMOUS HOLES that any halfwit can find.

The chance is real that you've been tapped for years, and we can guess without too much difficulty that your email can be monitored as well. We didn't look at it, of course, but given the amount of holes, it's not hard to imagine it happening.

Even though it would be completely legal for us to post all the necessary links (to access your systems), we won't do that. Instead, we will warn you before we publish about this shameful situation. The damage for a news organization would be so great if we just publish the sentence "GPD is Leaky," given that many of our readers will become curious about it, that your business would be in danger. We'd like to avoid that, of course. So, with this note, we make the very emphatic request that you close the holes.

We wonder who your system managers are. It might be prudent to keep these people as far away from all computers as possible and immediately seek a professional security company. These so-called system managers form an acute danger for your organization.

REMEMBER: we're not even talking about hacking here, all anybody needs to do is enter some links in a browser. In order to "hack" there would have to be some security, and there isn't any.

Friendly greetings,

GeenStijl.

(March 11, 2003)



The original Dutch text, if anybody is interested, is here. MORE

Museumnacht Hangover

(me captaining a U.S. WWII army jeep).

Museumnacht is the one night each year that most Amsterdam museums are open until late, 2 a.m. or later, and it's always a lot of fun. Unfortunately, certain people drank too much last night and are regretting it now.

Our evening began in the Verzetsmuseum (=Dutch WWII Resistance Museum) and ended up at an extremely weird (and fun) Halloween Party on the Oudezijds Voorburgwal. For those of you not familiar with Amsterdam, that means, in the Red Light District, the seediest underbelly of the city.

My head was hurting before I crawled into bed at around 6:30 a.m.; been a long time since I was out carrying on until all hours like that.

Now I have parenting duties, on a weak stomach, ugh.

Here's a quick clip of "De Fanfare van de Eerste Liefdesnacht" ('The Fanfare of Love's First Night'), a great band that performed at the Verzetsmuseum. They played authentic numbers that were popular at the time of the Dutch Liberation Day, May 5, 1945.
I'm afraid my hand wasn't very steady...


Both May 5th and Halloween hold special significance for me. MORE

Van Gogh - Letter Sketch - Loving Couple - Langlois Bridge

(vincent van gogh - the plan)
(vincent van gogh - what remains of the canvas, which he destroyed)
(vincent van gogh - a later, calmer painting from near the same spot)
(vincent van gogh - the concept once again)

The AP has a story about a nice display at the Van Gogh museum.

Basically, from the above pictures you can see the way that Van Gogh planned his compositions carefully, even though as a (post) Impressionist, he painted somewhat spontaneously at the spot. It all went wrong when he had to take the canvas back to his studio to finish, and he ended up cutting out the couple and throwing away the rest.

"With the sketch blown up to scale, the "Loving Couple" would fit perfectly onto it, matching notations of the colors van Gogh intended to use, down to the word "jaune" — French for "yellow" — on the man's hat. The canal water is emerald green, as van Gogh planned, and the woman is draped in an orange shawl. Although the path is mostly brown, rather than pink, as the artist indicated, he began with pink and then later colored on top of it."-AP

Google has the best layout on this that I've seen.

The one problem is, the story doesn't really lay the images in question side by side, or at full resolution. So I've taken the liberty.

I wonder only slightly about the copyright issues here. After all, Van Gogh's paintings and letters are surely in the public domain (?!).


By the way, tonight is Museumnacht, or "Museum Night" in Amsterdam, when all the musuems are open until 2 a.m., and I'm planning to go out and take some photos, weather permitting.

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Dutch nation wracked by Bike Light controversy

(photo:mioi)

The Dutch are in open revolt against plans thought up by some council of police chiefs to fine people for having "substandard" lights on their bikes.

Only in Holland!

Rewind a few years.

In the old days, every Dutch bike was outfitted little generator on the side of your tire that was supposed to power a little light on the front and back of your bike. (you can see one of those generators in the photo above, just below the fender).

And either the light would break, or the wires would get torn, or the generator would be too loosely pressed against the tire to work.
And if it all actually did work, then you would have to pedal about 10 times as hard as normal because the generator was pressed so hard against the side of the bike.
In any case, you'd get your hands greasy flicking the generator back and forth in the morning or evening.

So when the police first started ticketing people (EUR50 a pop) for not having working lights on their bikes (like 2001?), vendors saw a gap in the market. They started selling little battery powered lights that you could mount to your bike or better, clip on to your clothes.

These have advanced quickly over the years to become cheaper, and most of them have the option to flicker, and some are colored. Basically they've become expression of a person's individuality and freedom of choice while achieving the basic aim of not getting hit by cars.


(a short clip of bikes crossing near the Museumplein Thursday night. I've figured out how to compress videos by the way, so my page should load faster in the future.)

After the clocks were set back for Daylight Savings Time last weekend, the cops began their annual warning/ticketing campaign. But this time, for no apparent reason other than that they are fascists, the top cops said they wouldn't accept anything but unblinking lights, attached to the bike, white on the front and red on the back.

This morning, one newspaper had a story about how even some police officers were refusing to enforce the rule, and by tonight, it was the top story on the six o' clock news.

The Interior Affairs minister, Guusje ter Horst sensing that this was a stinking loser, politically, said that the country should have just one rule.

"The most important thing is that you're visible. I'm already happy if a biker has any kind of light."

Victory!
(photo: sindandune)
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