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 Posted February 10th, 2010 at 2:36PM
This is an account of my weekend trip to the Netherlands the last available weekend during my semester abroad in Freiburg, Germany, fall semester of 2005. I’m able to piece together that it was December 9th through the 12th, although additional details beyond that get hazy. The retelling got long so it’s split into two parts. Here’s the second part. Note that no admission of guilt or wrongdoing in any territory should be taken as stated or implied!
It was the middle of December 2005 and I was wrapping up my time abroad in Freiburg, Germany. The following week was final exams, and I would be on a Lufthansa flight bound for the States immediately thereafter. I felt all of the tumultuous, conflicting emotions of a student whose time abroad was drawing to a close. There was relief of some end in sight, being able to see friends and family, and the simple joy of understanding the errant stranger that might ask what time it was. There was trepidation over leaving the former French barracks and surrounding neighborhood that I came to know as home, and the several dozen other exchange students in the program that I had, with varying degrees, grown fond of. I had emerged unscathed from the supposedly unadulterated ‘anti-Americanism’ of a Europe still reeling from Dubya – even given the thumbs up on a train by a Turkish immigrant after revealing my nationality. I had my regrets, but they were mostly of the ‘opportunities missed’ variety.
The study abroad program I entered – IES‘s European Union program – nearly finished my Politics degree and included a host of program-sponsored travel throughout Europe, concentrating on EU seats of power and influence. We traveled in groups throughout Europe from west (France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg) to east (Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Estonia). In addition, I had spent a free weekend in Dublin, leaving with the pukey smell of the Guinness factory clogging my nostrils and some disorderly Irish kid’s piss soaking my shoes. By the end of the program, my wanderlust was all but sated. There was a single item left on the proverbial bucket list for my then 21-year-old self, and that was to experience Amsterdam.
Now, one fortuitous result of the European Union has been the slackening of borders, to the extent where travel of persons and goods throughout the Union is practically unfettered by traditional political boundaries. Because of this, and because of some particularly enterprising fellow students who had taken a train northward earlier in the semester, I was already familiar with the exceptional products coming from the Netherlands’ coffeeshops and smartshops. In quick summation for those not aware, the Netherlands has had for decades the clear-thinking drug policy of decriminalizing natural substances you might find whilst walking in the woods (or desert, as the case may be). Any free adult is able to walk into a coffeeshop and purchase small amounts of marijuana, or the equivalent smartshop designated for psilocybin mushrooms, hallucinogenic cacti, or any of the numerous other specimen that might alter perceptions and which the Christian god purportedly gave man dominion over.
Being one not shackled to puritanical ideals of consciousness, I felt a strong obligation to blow some legal weed while giving the DEA the figurative middle finger. (The legality of so-called ‘soft’ drugs in Germany is a murkier area, much like the rest of Europe.) Sure, I had some other things planned for my trip to the Netherlands, but then I’d already read Anne Frank’s diary and heard of the unfortunate incident involving Van Gogh’s ear, so there were certain priorities above and beyond the museums and canals.
I booked a flight via one of the budget airlines and looked forward to the Amsterdam experience, still temperate mid-December. I would be missing the legendary flower markets, but giddily I could already imagine the picturesque canals snaking through the oldest de Wallen district of the city, the friendly prostitutes soliciting from their black-light-lit rented cubicles, and the now ubiquitous coffeeshops peppering the landscape.
This trip, however, was almost not to be. My status as rookie globe-trotter glaringly revealed itself after I mistakingly left my passport on top my bureau. I discovered this fact just short of arrival at Frankfurt airport, a two hour-odd train ride, and despite the sincerest regrets of airport staff, I had nowhere to turn but back. So back I went, arriving in Freiburg late at night, playing the dejected fool.
“Soul-crushing” would be proximately the correct term, but after weighing the pros and cons, phoning my parents for solace, and in consideration of the dirt-cheap cost of the original ticket and the (slim) likelihood of getting another chance to go, I booked a one way flight the next day and fervently held onto the passport. It was going to happen. I phoned the hostel where I would be staying and told them I’d be a day late. Even factoring in two tickets to Amsterdam, the cost of flying was ridiculously low, to the point where it doesn’t even make sense for an airline to fuel the damn planes. But they did, and so I went.
Posted July 26th, 2005 at 8:49PM
Just a quick heads up for anyone wondering what’s going on. I just got back from a quick vacation to Chicago, where I saw Lollapalooza 2005. Pretty good time overall, in the next few days (whenever I have some time) I’ll be doing an extensive write-up about the show, the hotel, the city, the drive, and everything inbetween.
Also on the horizon, I want to write about my test drive of a 2005 MINI Cooper S, at Keeler MINI in Latham. It was only a quick tour around the block, and I was driving like a blue-hair in such a nice car with a salesman present, but I’ll be putting my first impressions down on paper soon. In a word? Scary good.
Also might get around to knocking a few heads politically. You never know.
Posted May 2nd, 2005 at 4:58PM
Disco Ball Affixed To McGraw Tower
May 02, 2005
by Eric Finkelstein
Sun Managing Editor
At approximately 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, the Cornell Police were notified that an unidentifiable object had been affixed to the top of McGraw Tower sometime in the middle of Friday night, bringing back memories of the pumpkin that was placed on the top of the tower on Halloween in 1997.
According to Officer Stanley Slovik of the Cornell Police, the object will be removed by crane sometime this morning.
The object appears to be a disco ball with a pole through it, attached to the tower with rope, according to Tommy Bruce, Cornell’s vice president of communications and media relations. “Preliminary investigations indicate that it is a disco ball, but we haven’t put it all together yet,” said Captain Curtis Ostrander of the Cornell Police.
…
In November 2000, The Sun interviewed, anonymously, the roommate of one of the perpetrators of the 1997 scheme. The roommate described the process, explaining that the group used an access hatch on the side of the roof of the tower and used the roof’s two-inch thick tiles to climb up and place the pumpkin on the top.
The question, then, arises, of whether or not it is possible that the hatch was used again. According to David Yeh, assistant vice president and university registrar, the hatch was welded shut after the 1997 incident.
“You would have to hide in the bell area. A rock climber could climb up there, but we have no idea how they could get over the ledge to the roof,” Bruce said.
“I’d like to know how it got there myself,” Shirley said.
Classic.
Posted March 21st, 2005 at 9:40PM
The April 16, 2005 meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank will represent the five year anniversary of the first major demonstrations against these institutions in the United States. Again we will gather in the streets of D.C. on April 16 to show that our resistance to these institutions and their greed only grows stronger. April 16 will once more be the day we show that our dreams for a better world are not only possible, but under construction at this moment, in all corners of the globe — and the IMF and World Bank, with all their efforts to demolish these dreams and actions, can never stop us.
GlobalizeThis.org
Will be there.
Posted March 16th, 2005 at 2:49PM
Pulitzer Prize Winner Seymour Hersh to Visit IC on March 24
Renowned author and journalist Seymour Hersh will be visiting Ithaca College on March 24 as the Park Distinguished Speaker for the 2004-2005 academic year. Hersh is a Pulitzer prize-winning investigative reporter and award-winning author, who recently won his fifth George Polk award for his accounts of prisoner abuse in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison; the honor distinguishes Hersh as the most-honored individual in the history of the awards.
Hersh will participate in a “town hall” question-and-answer session from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m. in Park Auditorium. This session is open exclusively to Ithaca College faculty, students, and staff.
At 7:30 p.m. in the Ford Hall Auditorium, Hersh will present a public lecture entitled “Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib,” based on his recent reports in The New Yorker magazine and his book on the subject. A reception and book signing will follow the lecture. Books will be available for sale.
I haven’t looked forward to a speaker on-campus this much since Kucinich was slated to speak (he later cancelled). I’ll be in attendance at both events, I recommend anyone else attending to arrive early. Last year when Spike Lee spoke, they booked him at Emerson Suites (capacity of a few hundred people). I arrived nearly an hour early and it was already way too late. The line was enormous and only about half of the people there actually got in. I’ve never been in Ford Auditorium, but believe it’s only marginally bigger than Emerson. Ugh. 
Seymour Hersh is one of America’s premier investigative journalists. He has reported some of the most important news stories of our time, including his 1970 Pulitzer prize-winning stories on the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War. Hersh has published eight books, which have earned him the 1983 National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times award for biography, and a second Sidney Hillman award, for The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House. Hersh has also won two Investigative Reporters and Editors prizes, for the Kissinger book, in 1983, and in 1992 for a study of American foreign policy and the Israeli nuclear bomb program, The Samson Option. In 2004, Hersh won a National Magazine Award for public interest for his three pieces, “Lunch with the Chairman,” “Selective Intelligence,” and “The Stovepipe.”
Seymour Hersh first wrote for The New Yorker in 1971 and has been a regular contributor to the magazine since 1993. His journalism and publishing prizes include the Pulitzer Prize, five George Polk Awards, the National Magazine Award, and more than a dozen other prizes (Sigma Delta Chi, Worth Bingham, Sidney Hillman, etc.) for investigative reporting on My Lai, the CIA’s bombing of Cambodia, Henry Kissinger’s wiretapping, and the CIA’s efforts against Chile’s Salvador Allende. In the 1980′s Hersh revealed the CIA’s illicit sale of U.S. weapons to Libya; the drug-running, vote-stealing, and other criminal activities of Panama’s General Noriega; the CIA’s complicity with South Africa’s spying on the African National Congress; the deceit and incompetence of the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada; and the growth of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.
Posted February 13th, 2005 at 9:25PM
I wrote this about a week ago, before any of the initial results were in. This is the final draft of my article on the Iraqi elections, which will be in the college alt. rag, due to hit stands March 1st.
The January 30th elections in Iraq were being hailed a success practically before the polls had closed. President Bush readily declared that the Iraqis had embraced democracy, and rejected the “anti-democratic ideology of the terrorists.†The number dead – only a few dozen – was suppose to (bizarrely enough) reinforce this position.
However, such unfettered optimism before the results were even in is cause for alarm. What will the recent elections in Iraq really accomplish? Will they bring legitimacy to something that – at the base of the matter – is still an occupation? This has yet to be seen, but common sense tells us to be more cautious than our government and media have been so far.
By Sunday night, turnout estimates as high as 72% were being circulated widely, a figure the mainstream media immediately clung to. It was eventually revealed that these estimates were made even before the polls had closed, by Farid Ayar, the spokesman for the Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq. Ayar later downplayed his initial numbers, saying they were “only guessing†and based on “word-of-mouth estimates gathered informally.â€
Since then, the estimates continue to fall. And even when they are confirmed (likely to happen by the time you’re reading this), the emphasis still shouldn’t be strictly on the official turnout – the 1967 presidential election in Saigon netted turnout numbers into the 80s.
The elections were primarily voting for a 275-member National Assembly, which will then draft a permanent constitution for Iraq. Voters chose from more than 100 lists, which were compromised of loose coalitions of parties and special interests – more than 7000 candidates all told.
Members for the National Assembly will then be chosen proportionally from the amount of votes a list received – so say a particular list received 20% of the vote. That list would then make up 20% of the National Assembly, or 55 members. The first 55 candidates on that list would be selected.
You might think a single list receiving 20% of the vote is a little high. But according to provisional results at the time of this writing, the United Iraqi Alliance netted nearly 50% of the vote alone.
In some ways, the system is remarkable – I know people who would kill for proportional representation in the United States – myself included. However, what looks good on paper might not work as well in a war ravaged country.
To bring any legitimacy to the occupation, the January elections had to be truly democratic. For if they aren’t perceived as such, then the very purpose is defeated out of hand. Because the elections aren’t simply for electing representatives – they’re an attempt to legitimize the new Iraq. And the only prerequisite for this new Iraq, in the minds of the current US administration, is having a stable, pro-US government in power. Elections are simply a perk, the means to a foregone conclusion.
One general red flag was the use of purple ink to dye the thumbs of those who had already voted. It’s a primitive but inexpensive solution to prevent people from voting multiple times. The problem is that we used the same system in Afghanistan – and there were widespread allegations of the ink being easily wiped off.
Whether or not the allegations are well-founded, however, is ultimately of little consequence – there was likely far worse voter fraud to prevent. And unfortunately, there was not a single foreign election monitoring body in Iraq on the day of the election – they were instead “observing†from across the border in Jordan. The interim Iraqi government had monitoring officials on hand, but does this government really have the legitimacy to self-monitor?
Another alarming aspect of the election was the inability of candidates or lists to actively campaign for votes. There was an official campaign period in the month leading up to the election, but the threat of violence (understandably) kept many from campaigning. Iraqi civilians were being told to remember the number of the list they wanted to vote for. Without knowing who were on the lists, or what their politics were, many had to rely on endorsements from popular leaders. For instance, Iranian Shi’a cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani endorsed list number 169 (the United Iraqi Alliance). But who exactly were the candidates on this list? Who knows!
How democratic is an election in which you can’t even name who you’re going to vote for?
Before election day, polls suggested that Sunni turnout was going to be much lower than their Shi’a or Kurdish counterparts – the result of Sunni misgivings about the election, as well as calls for a boycott by prominent Sunnis. Provisional results are indeed showing low Sunni turnout, and this will lead to an over-representation of Shi’a and Kurds in the National Assembly. The boycott will likely make Sunni fears of disempowerment a reality. The blame cannot be pinned on anyone, however it is a further blow to the validity of the National Assembly.
Last summer, there was the purported handover of power, the official end of the occupation. However, it was a farce, in the fact that the US still wields the power in Iraq even today. Nothing changed following the June handover of power – it was irrelevant political maneuvering. For these elections to be successful, there needs to be meaningful improvements in the quality of life in Iraq. But with the Bush administration refusing to provide any sort of timetable for the end of military operations, and indeed with new US military bases in Iraq being made permanent every day, the prospects for Iraq look dim.
People grow tired of the comparisons to Vietnam. I’ve grown tired of them. However as Iraq stretches on it’s hard not to notice the growing similarities. The 1967 elections in Saigon were to provide legitimacy for the government we installed in South Vietnam. It didn’t work in that instance, as history has shown. And there is no reason to believe that elections will change anything now, as long as America is on the ground in Iraq.
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And be sure to check out the latest This Modern World, which deals with the issue perfectly: Turning the Corner
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