Hottie of the week!

 
Wouter Hamel, singer.

Shampoo

Try to imagine this: A modern, progressive world, filled with ambitions and developments. The people aren’t really scared by wars and terrorist attacks and most of the people who are living in the Western world are enjoying a happy life. Hard to imagine, isn’t it? Since 2001 this vision flew away when Al Qaida committed a terrorist attack by flying some airplanes into buildings. These terrorists (or freedom fighters, if you live in Afghanistan) were partially responsible for the world we now live in. Before 9/11 no one heard of Al Qaida, but nowadays it’s one of our biggest fears. 

Why? Well, that isn’t so easy. First of all I want to make clear that I’m totally against any form of violence, no matter what’s your rase, religion, sexuality, hair color, weight or shoe size. Of course everything that happened is horrible, but we have to realize that we did it ourselves. We let them win this, non-existing, battle. They didn’t want to kill people, they wanted attention. And they got it, believe me.

Within weeks the whole world felt threatened so there had to be strict measures, for our own safety! And you couldn’t be against it, I mean, are you one of them? Do you want more terrorist attacks? The social pressure was enormous and surviving was more important than privacy. So during the years after, lots of rules and legislation was introduced. For example, you couldn’t bring more than 100ml shampoo in your hand luggage because you might be able to make a soapy bomb and hurt a stewardess... You might think I’m exaggerating, but that’s how it goes these days. They have the right to strip search you, your luggage and your electric equipment. Don’t think you have any rights at this moment, because they can – and will – do everything to be sure that you’re not carrying a bomb, weapons or shampoo with you.

In the past the authorities had to have ‘a reasonable suspicion’ when they wanted to check you for dangerous objects, but now everything is allowed if they suspect a terrorist connection. And when you have a beard, a dark skin, a Koran, shampoo or when you speak Arabic, you ARE a terrorist connection. This, pethatic, touchiness started in the U.S., but because of its economic importance in the world we all followed this ludicrous policies.

Our governments didn’t want such attacks either so The Netherlands was one of the first countries that followed the U.S. with its policies. We got cameras, databases and courses for police men to recognize the ‘bearded baddies’. Too bad we only forgot one thing: investigate and ask how the citizens thought of all these changes. Perhaps people felt less safe because of all these changes? People got reminded that they’d might be a terroristic target because of all safety measures that were introduced.

Besides that, people individualize more and more in the 21th century and they need more privacy with that. Unfortunately the governments doesn’t see this as a high priority anymore, especially not in comparison with terrorist threat. 

In conclusion I think you can say that by all measures people only felt more unsafe than they did before. Constantly we’re confronted by security in our society and we realize why: because of all the threats over the world. They say fear is a bad adviser, but all governments only listened to that! They were so afraid this was going to happen again (and it did) that they forgot everything, just to make sure everyone was – or felt – safe. Is this working? I think the answer got something to do with the one in the beginning of this blog. 

J&R

Hottie of the week!

        Andrej Dúbravský, talented artist

Bicycle-lessons for adults.

It should be required for anyone with an age above 30 to do a cycling-exam every ten years.

You probably wonder why I suggest such a thing, why I’m so bittered. Well let me tell you.

Are you known with the notorious Dutch traffic? Have you ever been on a bicycle? For the foreign people I’ll explain how the normal streetview looks like in The Netherlands: There are over 30 million bicycles here and we only have 16 million people living in our country. Doesn’t that say enough? Dutch children already learn how to cycle when they are like 5-6 years old.

Can you imagine how our traffic looks like with this many people on the road? People should really know what they should and definitely know what they should not do in traffic.
For example stopping on the left side of a traffic light when you know you really aren’t the fastest cyclist out there. Why would someone do that? Get out of my way!  

Or cycling together with a friend -side to side- and cycling extremely, and with extremely I mean really extreme, slowly. Start walking if you use this kind of speed! 

And the worst nightmare for every road user are the elderly in traffic. They cycle with a maximum speed of 10 kph (6.2 MPH). I’m not exaggerating. And the worst thing in history is when you are trying to pass them. You ring your bell (which many cyclists don’t even have… I’m just saying), but they never respond to it. They just can’t hear it. The first thing that comes in my mind is: Why the **** are you in traffic when you’re deaf, for God's sake?!

In short there are enough frustrations when you get absorbed in Dutch cycling-traffic. So be warned!

J&R. 

Beth Ditto, singer from Gossip.

Bin Laden? I know where he is!

Every week a new survey of some kind bores our lifes with things we don’t want to know. Last week for example, I read that women expect to receive a text message back within 2-5 minutes. Men on the other hand are still happy when they have to wait 12 minutes. An other survey told us that we waste 394 days on the lavatory during a lifetime. But I can’t imagine why that's a waste. They’re the most happiest and peaceful days in a man’s life. I love being on the lavatory more than I love being on holiday, and I don’t consider it as time wasted.

And anyway, 394 days is nothing compared the time I really waste waiting outside in the freezing cold, while a friend of mine is trying to find her keys in her handbag. And then there is the time I waste waiting for her to answer the mobile phone. Normally, it rings for 48 hours before she finds it acclimatizing at the bottom of her handbag, underneath a receipt from something she bought in 1997. Nowadays, if I suspect her phone to be in her bag, I write a letter instead. It’s quicker.

The men and women in the American army think they have a really hard time trying to find Osama Bin Laden, somewhere in the mountains in Afghanistan, but I think they should be thankful that he didn’t choose to hide out in my friend’s handbag.

My God, I just thought of something. Maybe he did. Maybe he is hiding in there now! Sitting there with his AK-47 and a video recorder. Maybe he’s using her mobile phone she lost two years ago, supplying Al Jazeera with news.

Last week I read that the average woman owns 40(!) handbags. So I asked my friend about her amount and she told me she had 31 bags. Apparently it has something to do with seasons. She claimed that she couldn’t use her favourite bag during summer because the bag is made out some kind of cow and would look ‘all wrong’.

According to a spokesman from Jimmy Choo it has everything to do with style. He said that if you wear the right shoes, and the right bag, you’ll look right.

But that’s rubbish! If you’re fat and only have one tooth there’s not a bag in the world that’ll mask your problem, unless you wear it over your head ofcourse. And that isn’t recommendable because it will take two years before you’ll find it again.

I was confused so I asked my friend permission to look into her purse. She agreed so I turned it upside down on the table. Although her bag had the size of an egg, the mess was gigantic. They say panda bears are very rare and only live in China, but I now know there’s a small family living in The Netherlands.

There were also a pair of spectacles. Not so strange you’re probably thinking, but her eyes are perfect. When I asked for the reason she told me she might need them at some point. So does that mean there’s a stairlift in there as well?

She also had 37 coins, from twelve different countries. Nine of those countries didn’t even exist anymore. Then there was chewing gum, that she never eats, and pills for diseases that cleared up in the 1920s.

I genuinely don’t understand this. When I leave the house I get my house keys, my iPhone, some money and mints. And even when I’m only wearing jeans and a T-shirt, which is always, I cope just fine.

Dear women of the world, stop carrying everything you’ve ever owned with you, because you will still look good.

J&R

Hottie of the week!

               

Jensen Ackles, actor.

Hooray!

Hooray! It's R's birthday today!

J&R

Hottie of the week!

Maria Sharapova, tennis player.

Sorry Pakistan.

Not that long ago something terrible happened in Pakistan. Like you probably all know, a big part of Pakistan flooded. Almost fourteen milion people are homeless, and it costed approximately 1.400 lives. Horrible ofcourse. I think we can’t even imagine the scale of such a disaster.

Because of all that misery there was a big media campaign last week in The Netherlands, aiming to raise money for the Pakistanis. If you realize that we collected 208 million euro (268 million USD) for the tsunami-victims five years ago, and 83.4 million euro (107 million USD) for the Haitians earlier this year, it’s a brilliant idea! Unfortunately we only raised 20 million euro (26 million USD) for Pakistan. I have to admit that there are days I don’t have that amount of money in my wallet, but still.

The cause of this isn’t really clear. First of all this disaster just isn’t visual enough. We all saw the same images of water and.... well, more water. And that’s it. There just wasn’t more footage of ripped buildings and swimming donkeys. The reason why is really simple. I mean, when was the last time you wanted to go on holiday in Pakistan? Exactly, there just weren’t big, fat Americans with cameras or iPhones screaming ‘Oh my gosh!’.

The second reason is the same reason why I didn’t gave money to Pakistan. Honestly, I feel really guilty about it, but it just doesn’t feels right. I’ll explain it to you. Each year Pakistan receives 1.5 billion USD (1.16 billion euro) from the world, for aid. I don’t have a problem with that so far, because they really need it. But at the same moment Pakistan is spending 5 billion USD, that’s 5,000.000.000 dollars (3.9 billion euro) on defense. They bought lots of weaponry, armor and even an atomic bomb. Obviously you won’t have any money left to build dikes and sluices.

I realize that the Pakistanis can’t help this and that they’re the victim of their own government. But that’s the problem in all of this. When I’d donate money it eventually would go to the Pakistani government and that makes the vicious circle complete. And even if it didn’t, I still won’t want to donate money. Besides the fact that only 70 cents of your euro/dollar will be used over there, I don’t want to be responsible for their failing government. I know it’s easy to say for me that they have to stand up against their government, but I’m not responsible for that. 

As long as this kind of countries won’t be able to take care of their own people I’m not in the mood to help these countries, and that includes the people unfortunately.

I don’t want to say that we have to solve this ‘American style’, by bombing everything and build Burger Kings on every corner, but I think the UN needs to intervene. Because if they won’t, thousands of people will die every year because of this kind of natural disasters.

J&R