paintings and photographs

Last Saturday I read in my newspaper “Leeuwarder Courant” an item about the famous portrait of Johannes Vermeer “girl with a pearl” in which this painting was compared with two photographs with models. The photographs tried to imitate the painting. I came across that before: setting up a scene, as similar as possible to the painting (light, colour, position of figures, face, etc.) and always I get convinced of the superiority of the painting above the Photo. The Leewarder Courant published two photos: one of Scarlett Johansson in the film “Girl with a pearl earring” (2003) and one photo made by a mother, of her young daughter. I couldn’t get hold of the mother’s photo yet, but what I saw was a superficial similarity with the original, which was even stronger than the similarity between the original and the photo of Scarlett Johannnson. What struck me most, however was the facial expression in the three pictures. The original shows a girl who just heard the watcher saying something, or entering the room. What she hears is just enough to raise her interest, and she turns her head to the person who interrupted whatever she was occupied with (reading, playing the harpsichord, broidery). She is not startled not really surprised, her eyes are calm, but immediately showing a willingness to deep interest in what you as the watcher, and her “disturber” has to say, even more, what kind of person you are. It is really a frozen moment in time, to which no preparation took place and raising questions about what will follow. All that embedded in a masterly arrangement of form, light and colour. An ingenious piece of art, only comparable to the Mona Lisa. As a museumcard-holder I can watch her for free when I am in The Hague and take the effort to visit the Mauritshuis.

Then the mother’s picture. This girl is a little bit younger than Vermeer’s girl, but her face expresses a total different situation. She looks at her mother, wondering if she, at last, now looks the right way, wanting that it’s all over. Her eyes show no interest in who you, as a watcher, are or what you have to say. But the physical resemblance with Vermeer’s girl is really striking. Also the light is very similar, Vermeer shows more contrast in light-dark, only her blouse’s colour is green and Vermeer’s blouse is golden and shows almost no wrinkles or plies as in the photograph.

Then the photo of Scarlett Johansson. Here the promotion of the film is more important than resemblance with the original. What you see is a lady with a very sensible mouth, ready to kiss the watcher. She doesn’t turn her head to you in a movement that is goind on or has just been completed, no, she is already in conversation with you. Even the physical resemblance with Vermeer’s girl, who is clearly a modest and well-raised young lady, isn’t there, she wouldn’t dare making the suggestion to kiss you, it’s innocence and maybe a very little bit of curiosity and expectation that she radiates. Outright assertiveness and “I am in charge of the situation” is what Scarlett wants to express.

So this was another confirmation of my opinion that trying to imitate a painting, especially of such grandeur as Vermeer’s pearl girl, will only let the original shine more by its contrast with your attempts. I think the other way around this will also be the case, especially with portraits made by an excellent portrait photographer.

I ‘ll keep trying to find a publishable version of the mother’s photo to show you.

And now... for something completely different!

Warning: partially inspired by the style of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” so if you hate this style then skip this posting).

Translating poetry, I think, is a means by which you can make the national poetry more, let’s say, international. Because there is so much nice Dutch poetry that can’t be understood by non-Dutch people and that’s kind of shame I think. So I made an anthology of three great poems that every well-educated Dutchman or –woman knows because it was on TV or they learnt it by heart for a school literature presentation. Of course, to internationalise the poems I made an attempt to translate two of them, the third one was already available in translated version on the Internet. I hope I don't violate copyrights, I mentioned the source.Well, the first one is by our great Dutch poet Cees Buddingh’. Yes, the apostrophe really belongs to his name. It’s called “The blauwbilgorgel” and Buddingh’ got inspired by by reading a British story called “The bluebillgurgle”.

De Blauwbilgorgel

Ik ben de blauwbilgorgel,
Mijn vader was een porgel,
Mijn moeder was een porulan,
Daar komen vreemde kind’ren van.
Raban! Raban! Raban!

Ik ben de blauwbilgorgel
Ik lust alleen maar korgel,
Behalve als de nachtuil krijst,
Dan eet ik riep en rimmelrijst.
Rabijst! Rabijst! Rabijst!

Ik ben de blauwbilgorgel,
Als ik niet wok of worgel,
Dan lig ik languit in de zon
En knoester met mijn knezidon.
Rabon! Rabon! Rabon!

Ik ben de blauwbilgorgel
Eens sterf ik aan de schorgel,
En schrompel als een kriks ineen
En word een blauwe kiezelsteen.
Ga heen! Ga heen! Ga heen!

In English:

I am the bluebillgurgle
My father was a purgle
My mother was a porulam,
There come weird children from.
Rabom, rabom, rabom.

I am the bluebillgurgle,
The only food I like is curgle,
Excepted when the night-owl cries,
Then I eat reep and rimmle-rice.
Rabice, rabice, rabice!

I am the bluebillgurgle,
When I don’t wock or wurgle,
I ‘m lying basking in the sun,
And cnooster with my cnezidun,
Rabun, rabun, rabun!

I am the bluebillgurgle,
Once I shall die of scurgle,
Change shrinking as a crix I shall,
Into a nice blue pebble, rounded well,
To hell, to hell, to hell!

The second poem is also very famous for its subtle presentation of sound, leaving impressions of heavenly colours and fragrances. It is sung by Sjef van Oekel, and written by Wim T. Schippers. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get the URL where the song is sung into this post-editor, but you can get it by typing "zuurkool met vette jus" into the Google-searchbar (don't forget the parentheses) and click on the site "WIM T. SCHIPPERS-PAGE". After that, click on the middle one of the 3 pictures at the bottom of the screen (after scrolling down a bit the 3 pictures will appear). Or, better: click here and choose the second video of Van Oekel

Zuurkool met vette jus
Soep vooraf, ja dat is mijn menu
Kaantjes met bruine bonen
Flink veel ei, niet van dat gewone
Blokken kaas met mayonaise
Warme friet en ook saucijzen
Sperciebonen uit het vet
Pap van brood, zo is 't maar net
Arme kip, zo van het spit
Flink veel aardappelen waar een korstje aan zit
Een lekker prakje met een kuiltje jus
Garstig spek, dat is wat ik lus
Gebakken milt versierd met een sprotje
Zure bommen uit een potje
Ossetong in hete brij
Gegarneerd met dampende prei
Zwanenhals gevuld met druiven
Paardehoef om af te kluiven
Wat dacht u van een pudding met bessesap
En als toetje garnalenpap
Slappe thee en vruchtenijsjes
Lendelappen met vele radijsjes
Gebraden haan in druipend vet
Koffie toe en dan naar bed
Hutspot met warme croquetten
En een doekje om de mond te betten
Oude kaas in vele talen
Oude vis kan veel verhalen
Rode wijn en pruimedanten
Zeer veel drank en ook fazanten
Tonnen bier en stapels brood
Harde worst vol kokosnoot
Pittig sausje van weleer
Ach, wat wil een mens nog meer
Kastanjes op de geitenbrij

Sauerkraut with fat gravy,
Soup as a starter, yes, that’s my menu,
Cracklings with brown beans,
Lots of eggs, not that common stuff,
Blocks of cheese with mayonnaise,
Hot chips and sausages, too,
Green beans from the fat,
Porridge of bread, that’s how it is!
Poor chicken, just from the barbecue,
A good many potatoes with a crust on them,
A tasty mash with a hole filled with gravy,
Rancid bacon, that’s food I like.
Baked spleen decorated with a small sprat,
Sour gherkins from a jar,
Ox’s tongue in hot pulp,
Decorated with fuming leek,
Swan’s neck stuffed with grapes,
Horse’s foot to nibble from,
What about a pudding with berry juice,
And a dessert of mashed shrimps,
Slack tea and fruit ice,
Tenderloin with many radishes,
Roasted rooster in dripping fat,
Then the coffee and to bed.
Stew with hot croquettes,
And a napkin to dab the mouth,
Old cheese in many languages,
Old fish can tell many stories,
Red wine and dried prunes,
Very many drinks and pheasants, too,
Barrels of beer and piles of bread,
Hard sausage full of coconut,
Spicy sauce of lore,
Ah, what more does one desire!
Chestnuts on the goats’ pastry

Mpffff! Especially close reading can tell you a lot about the poet’s intentions. Did you know that the poet also made a Dutch translation of the Beatles’ song “Yesterday”? That’s maybe for a future posting.

Then, as last but not least, by Paul van Ostayen:

Alpejagerslied

Voor E. du Perron

Een heer die de straat afdaalt
een heer die de straat opklimt
twee heren die dalen en klimmen
dat is de ene heer daalt
en de andere heer klimt
vlak vóór de winkel van Hinderickx en Winderickx
vlak vóór de winkel van Hinderickx en Winderickx
van deberoemde hoedemakers
treffen zij elkaar
de ene heer neemt zijn hoge hoed in de rechterhand
de andere heer neemt zijn hoge hoed in de linkerhand
dan gaan de ene en de andere heer
de rechtse en de linkse de klimmende en de dalende
de rechtse die daaltde linkse die klimt
dan gaan beide heren
elk met zijn hoge hoed zijn eigen hoge hoed zijn bloedeigen hoge hoed
elkaar voorbij
vlak vóór de deur
van de winkel
van Hinderickx en Winderickx
van de beroemde hoedemakers
dan zetten beide herende rechtse en de linkse de klimmende en de dalende
eenmaal elkaar voorbij
hun hoge hoeden weer op het hoofd
men versta mij wel
elk zet zijn eigen hoed op het eigen hoofd
dat is hun recht
dat is het recht van deze beide heren


© 1928, Paul van Ostaijen From: Verzamelde gedichtenPublisher: Bert Bakker, Amsterdam, 2005ISBN: 90 351 2820 6 Paul van Ostaijen

BERSAGLIERI SONG

for E. du Perron

A gentleman going up the street
a gentleman going down the street
two gentlemen going up and down
that is the one gentleman goes up
and the other gentleman goes down
right in front of the shop of Henryson and Wenryson
right in front of the shop of Henryson and Wenryson
the famous hatmakers
they meet each other
one gentleman takes his high hat in his right hand
the other gentleman takes his high hat in his left hand
the one gentleman and the other
the right and the left the one going up and the one going down
the left going up
the right going down
each with his high hat his own high hat his bloody own high hat
pass each other
right in front of the door
of the shop
of Henryson and Wenryson
the famous hatmakers
then the two gentleman
the right and the left the one going up and the one going down
once past each other
put their hats on their heads again
don't misunderstand me
each puts his own hat on his own head
that is their right
that is the right of these two gentlemen

© Translation: 1982, James Holmes From: The First Book of Schmoll. Selected PoemsPublisher: Bridges, Amsterdam, 1982

Well, I hope you enjoyed the anthology.

Daily life in Bagdad

In my newspaper I found an article about a young woman keeping a weblog about her daily life in Bagdad. Very, very courageous indeed because if over there (forgive me the expression) you fart the wrong direction, you are not sure of your life anymore, and on top of that, what the heck if an innocent passer-by also falls victim to the "heroic" battle of anonymous fighters for Allah?
Anyway, her weblog didn't remain unnoticed by Dutch journalists and a great deal of it is translated in Dutch and published.: "Bagdad onder vuur, dagboek van een jonge vrouw in Irak" (vertaling Thijs Bartels, ISBN 9029078332).

You can find her weblog here, I also put it in my template under "links".

in memoriam Abbé Pierre

At 22 January at the age of 93, God invited Abbé Pierre to leave this world and come to His. When I was 16 I remember a visit to his projects in Paris with our school class, at that time I didn't realise what he meant for society: we boys found Napoleon's grave and the Eiffel Tower more exciting than the places filled with second-hand materials of Abbé Pierre. Now I hope that I'll be forgiven, because now it's the other way around for me. It's not a matter of if, but a matter of when he well be declared a Saint of the Church, I'm sure. You can consider him the mother Theresa of Paris. Here you find more information about him.

The meaning of meaning

My profession is lecturer at an undergraduate Hotel Management School. As such I am interested in hospitality, especially in its manifestations in social reality, how it originated, why people find it important or less important, what motivates people to be hospitable or hostile (note well the similarity of those two words, as they have the same Latin root), etc. Before I will go deeper into it in coming postings, first something about meaning and “the meaning of meaning”.

In one of my previous postings I spoke about imposing poetical or ideological, or religious, in short, meaningful and/or symbolic reality on genuine reality. I did so in an attempt to interpret the subtitle of Goethes’ book “Dichtung und Wahrheit” (“Poetry/imagination/fabrication and Truth”). Before I will make an attempt to explain something of the concept of hospitality, first a little demonstration. In the illustrations you find two figures. One looks like a household ladder used by people who want to attach a lamp bulb in the ceiling lamp, or clean the window etc. The other one looks like a boat, also provided with a lamp which seems to be loosely attached to its stem, anyway the attachment isn’t visible on the picture. I’m sure that adult people who can read and write texts in Latin characters will not think of a household ladder in the first place when seeing the first illustration. They will instantly see it as the letter A. Only when they are asked to look at the figure and answer the question: “What does it looks like further?” They may answer “a household ladder”, but the chance that nothing else comes up in their minds, is also big. In their eyes the other figure, which in fact is the Arabic letter Feh, represents nothing else than maybe a boat or simply “an Arabic character”, if they don’t master the Arabic language.

This little demonstration gives rise to some intriguing questions: what we people see, is that true, and if it’s true, is it truth itself or a representation of the truth? And representation of the truth is only possible if we have an idea of what the truth entails, otherwise it is impossible to be represented by humans, isn’t it? Because many people will take it for granted, that the first picture IS the letter A, without thinking of what it represents. A loose letter represents nothing, except in mathematics, and even there it is something abstract. We see it as an element in language construction. However, when we see the word “table” we automatically “think of” the useful and concrete object present in every living room. That’s clear. But what to think of the word “truth” or “love” or so many religious words? What to think of the words “society”, “marketing”, “entrepreneurship”, “honesty”, “consciousness”, etc.? Thousands of articles and books have been written in which the author takes for granted that the reader will attach the same meaning to what (s)he writes, as (s)he does. That’s also why in serious papers and books authors dedicate their fist paragraphs to definitions and descriptions of what they mean by their subject topics. The reader then can assess if (s)he agrees or not. When the book is a bestseller this may lead to a public debate about the “truth” brought forward in it. In societies in which the written word and rationalism doesn’t play such a big role as it does in ours, representation of what’s considered to be the truth, and the truth itself – in this stage we can use the words “truth” and “reality” as having the same meaning – are often mixed up, at least, in our eyes! In one of the articles I read about the meaning of symbols I came across the following example:
“… or the example of Victor Turner, who draws attention to a specific kind of tree used as a symbol in a number of rituals by the Ndembi tribe: it represents womanhood, fertility, the mother-child bond, the unity and perseverance of the Ndembi in general, etc. One cannot fail to compare the Ndembi ritual with the different views between Protestant and Roman Catholics about the Christian ritual of the Last Supper: in some instances the tree represents mother's milk (the latex-like juice it produces), in other instances the tree or parts of it are used as a real medicine, really contributing to mother-like characteristics of women.
(Victor Turner, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembi Ritual (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967).

(To be continued in one of next postings)

Dagobert Duck and Africa

Recently I read a newspaper article about a book that would give the answer to the question why Africa remained a poor continent and will remain so for many decades in the future. Unfortunately (people who know me will confirm that I 'm sometimes forgetful) I don't remember the book nor the author. But the content of the book was very enlightening. The reason why Africa remained poor despite all efforts to establish industries and commercial activities, is a cultural one. For instance, if you have a small company in the Netherlands, you are not obliged to give your product or service for free to family and other community members, but in large parts of Africa you are, so almost every starting company is deemed to go bankrupt (in the theory of this book, at least). If you are gifted with capabilities to complete a university study as a second or third son in your family, and your eldest brother is not, it is not uncommon in Africa to quit the university in order not to "trespass" him. Also, people who are rich and influential in Africa are far more obliged to share their wealth and influence with family and community (mostly the village or area where they were born) than they are in Europe. If they fail to fulfil this duty, then a curse will follow them over the world wherever they might go to escape. This theory of what I call "dominance of community relations over individual choice" is illustrated in the book by numerous examples of "unfair" behaviour.
Before we have our judgment ready about this theory, let's look at an example of the way we, as rich Westerners, award initiative and "rich" behaviour.

Donald Duck's rich uncle Dagobert is on his way to his work and passes a flower girl along the pathway. The flower girl kindly asks him to buy some flowers. When I read this, I immediately thought: that scrappy Dagobert will of course find buying flowers a waste of time and money. But on the other hand, what does a flower girl in the story, so I turned the page to see the rest of it. Dagobert "awards" the commercial initiative of the young and inexperienced entrepreneur by buying all flowers she has. The girl was of course very pleasantly surprised and says: Oh sir, how can I thank you? And Dagobert replies: By hard work! You have to sign this contract (he puts a contract under her eyes, pointing a pen with the back of it in her direction), and you will get 10 cents an hour from me, at Sundays 20 cents. The girl thinks: he buys all my flowers, and gives me money for my selling work on top of it, how can I refuse? And she signs. Then Dagobert puts a sign in the bottom next to her flower stand saying: "HELP THE POOR FLOWER GIRL" and replaces the price sign. The girl sold her flowers for 50 cents a bunch, from now on it was 2 Euro a bunch.

This little Donald Duck story was of course a series of comic drawings, but now that I read the story in words, it could very well have been a modern parable from the New Testament, encouraging Jesus' disciples to think about how the Lord would NOT treat His children, or how a rich man should behave to be sure NOT to gain eternal salvation. But in fact, this kind of conduct is completely legal in our culture, and many crooks use it to get rich in a "honest" and "respected" way. Many people familiar with business management will recognize it as "franchising" (however not thinking of this conduct when they negotiate franchising contracts).

When I read this little story, I couldn't help thinking of the African theory I read a few days before. I must admit that some of the darkest prejudicial little devils had a party in my mind when I read that newspaper book review. But, because I was grown in the best liberal traditions, next door little angels bumped on the door that they had to stop the party noise: was our business-oriented culture better than theirs? We as Westerners may get upset when we hear about "their" family and community traditions, which we find totally obsolete and unfair. We call their mutual support "corruption" but we forget that they are simply obliged to it. If Europeans are corrupt, it's always mere greed and despise of legal rules that has lead to it. There are almost no career opportunities over there outside family and community support.
On the other hand, we are always pleasantly surprised by African hospitality and social conduct. It seems as if Africans know what "love their neighbour" entails, and that we forgot about it, because we think that the state and the charity organisations will take care of the poor. Or, we are all little Dagobert Ducks and kill initiative by buying it.

about God I

To religious people this analysis may seem inappropriate: one doesn’t analyse God’s existence, all you must do with respect to Him is worshipping and praying. Nevertheless I ask for understanding if I make a miserable attempt, not being a theologian or philosopher. I know He will allow me to do so.

1. Humans are the only creatures that we know of who are able to conceive the existence of a Supreme Being, or a Higher Principle. The reason for this is that only humans can think in an abstractive way, they are able to imagine situations not associated to the immediate visible and touchable. At the same time, the human species is also eager to know cause-and effect-relationships, if they can’t find one and the outcome is very relevant for their existence, then they tend to ascribe the capability to influence it to God or to gods. This is the rational explanation why people tend to believe in God.
2. Next to the rational explanation there is also an emotional or spiritual one. People feel that they are part of the incomprehensible Nature, that blesses them with gifts but also threatens them with disasters. They also feel dependent upon one another in the same tribe or family and follow its prescribed rules. The rules always serve two things: 1. Harmony with Nature or at least protection against its whims an 2. Harmony among people within the tribe.
3. During history of mankind, in all societies and cultures, men have always been convinced of the existence of Something Supernatural that determines the course of things. It started with ghosts, located in mountains, trees, rivers etc., or in animals. Then stories, whole series of myths were told and recorded about man-shaped figures who were gods, mostly with their areas of authority. The ghosts were sometimes also detached from their rivers and mountains and became invisible “powers” with special priests or shamans who were capable to influence their acting. Mostly the ghost-gods demanded sacrifices, food and drinks up to human lives, in exchange for a prosperous course of things. What we call “praying” didn’t seem to exist, only mediating by shamans and sacrificing.
4. Zoroaster in ancient Persia, and Achnaton in ancient Egypt, both around 1,200 BC, introduced the concept of One God. On an unknown time the One-God concept was also adhered to by the Israelites. Zoroaster and Achnaton located and/or symbolised their One God in/by the sun, the Israelites abstracted Him from any visible object. Their God is still worshipped by Christians, Jews and Muslims, and some small religions derived from these three.
5. In modern times the existence of God (let alone gods) is challenged by many people. People are able to deny His existence publicly without fear of being punished, which was unthinkable in times in which people were scared of God’s wrath if they would leave blasphemies unpunished. The God-believers mostly tend to believe that God Himself is capable enough to punish whoever en whenever He finds it needed. In Western countries, the non-believers have an equal social status as the believers.
6. Nowadays, when (1) the cause-and-effect need in human knowledge claims a natural cause for everything, even if it’s not discovered yet, and (2) individualism is considered a great good and, by consequence, people feel (far) less dependent upon each other, God’s existence is far more questioned than it ever has been in history. This leads to the following statements by believers and non-believers:
A. There is nothing that indicates the existence of a God, everything is explainable by discovered and yet to be discovered, laws of logic and nature. So there is no God.
I find this statement a contradictio in terminis, it speaks against itself. Karl Popper, the founder of modern scientific methodology stated that scientific conclusions have to be falsifiable, that is testable in such a way that the opposite or denial of what is concluded, can be confirmed. Concluding that there is no cause, because up to now that cause has not been discovered, is unscientific in this sense.
B. If there would be a God, then He would never have allowed the miserable things we see around us (diseases, disasters, poverty, cruelty, etc.). So there is no God.
First, this doesn’t match with the phenomenon that the more prosperous people are, the more they tend to use this argument, and the more misery people suffer, the more religious they are. (This lead Marx to his conclusion that religion is the opium of people, thinking that people were mislead). Second, it pre-supposes a human knowledge of “how God is” and how He would “have to” act according to human standards. Which is contrary to the concept of God. One of the next postings more about this.
C. My religion is the only true religion, and superior to all others.
Religions always claim to be “for all people”, and people who refuse to adopt a religion, are offenders of God in this conception. E.g. Luther denied the “onlyness” of the Roman Catholic Faith by creating another religion (he himself saw it as returning to it, not creating). After strong attempts to convert the Jews to Christianity, he became a Jew-hater, using the argument that they had crucified Christ. Nowadays we must admit that God apparently allows other religions’ existence next to the only true religion which is yours. I think we must not see this as “allowing” but as “human variations”: if you find the Koran your only guiding principle, then it’s that for you, but this doesn’t make Christianity inferior, even if you think the Koran says so. This is also the case with the Bible. E.g. Jesus says: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Everyone who doesn’t follow Me, is against Me”. I’m convinced that a sincere and integer Muslim is also a follower of Jesus in this sense, just like a pious Christian is a Muslim in the sense of the Koran. One can’t come to another conclusion if peace and harmony is to be kept. Rejection of religion is no option, also not from a political and sociological viewpoint.
D. What I believe is in the Holy Book that God gave to mankind, and I (have to) follow its instructions
Humans are enabled by their senses, but also restricted by them. A philosophical proverb says: “the Word is given to him/her who already posses it”. What does this mean? According to me it says that you have to own the words you read in the Holy Book, before you can understand them. All learning is based on this concept, that knowledge has to be based on preceding knowledge, to which the new knowledge is only a further clarification. This is the way humans are, and must consequently also be applied to Holy Books. G.E. Lessing compares absorbing Gods’ instructions as simple commandments from a sergeant or from a parent “because I say so” with small children’s behaviour. (in his “Education of Mankind”). This doesn’t mean that we should give our own interpretation to the Holy Book just as we like it, what it means is that we have to investigate its content, constantly seeking to what is meant by the Words. If we possess the Word, then we will understand. Jesus said: “whoever has ears to hear, let him hear”, clearly referring to the human senses.

A peculiar thing about man’s conception of God is that so many people take for granted that they know Who and/or What He is. Only the Jews explicitly let Him be a Mystery, which doesn’t mean they diminish His Divinity, on the contrary. One of the next postings I will proceed my analysis by exploring more on this question.

A visit to Bergeijk (not only bringing the radio)

This morning I got into the car at 7.45 A.M. and headed for Bergeijk, to bring to my brother the long-promised radio (see previous posting). The weather was very windy (6-7 Beaufort) and sometimes a shower. I have driven this route dozens of times, and I must say that I don’t hate it. At first there is the Frisian landscape with flat pusta-like plains, only these are much greener and also permeated with lakes and canals. Then one drives through an area which was sea-bottom only 40 years ago, and now “furbished” with a complete infrastructure of towns, trees, small woods, agriculture, roads, a railroad, and also very flat. Above this flat landscape an enormous sky overwhelms you, especially at this weather: dark grey and white clouds with silver brims against a bright turquoise. Sometimes the sun rays draw their clear lines from behind the clouds to the earth. At a given time, I wanted to make a photo just when the sky was at its most beautiful, and I parked my car at the first parking lot possible. But then the nice rays were gone, and I decided to wait until they would appear again, but all I could make was the picture shown here. Then after ten minutes I started driving again and yes, you guess it… there they were again, those fancy rays. During the trip I listened to the radio, there was an interview with two researchers. One of them had gone to an island group in the Pacific and the other to Alaska, both to study the effects of the climate change we are now experiencing. I felt the effects this year, and especially during this trip: nature was confused, birds behaved as if it was spring, plants started to blossom, etc. The storm had now been lasting for four days already, mostly it is one day or night and then it’s over. In Alaska and the Pacific islands the rise of the sea level was already noticeable and permafrost is thawing out. I had read that this process itself also enhances the greenhouse-effect because of the released gasses, in a positive feedback or vicious circle. I must not think of the effects on Holland, it would almost be reduced to half its size, and the country is already so small. I thought of all those people buying expensive houses located below sea-level, with long-lasting mortgages, and of all young people who had to cope with the enormous difficulties and problems that we can expect this century. Anyway, for the time being landscape and the sky were beautiful although my enjoyment was a bit spoiled by feelings of guilt because I was driving such a distance for only bringing a radio to my brother. We are really addicted to energy consumption, Janine and I had decided to abandon the laundry dryer and the dish washer, but so much more could be done. We also don’t eat chicken and pig meat anymore because of the polluting bio-industry, Janine is already a complete vegetarian. If the whole Western world and China would give up mass consumption of all these nice things you don’t really need then maybe it would help a bit but I’m afraid that’s just impossible. With these thoughts I now drive through the small sand hills covered with fir woods around Hilversum and Amersfoort, pushed up by the glaciers of the second latest Ice Age. It’s called the Utrechtse Heuvelrug (the Utrecht Hills Ridge). After another twenty minutes they are left behind and we drive along the city of Utrecht, one of the four “big cities” of the Netherlands (nothing compared to Paris or Shanghai, I think it has only around 350.000 inhabitants). Then the landscape gets picturesque again, with the crossing of the big rivers showing the atmosphere of our painter Jacob Ruysdael (see picture with the mill, now the sights are greater because they are from the highroad-bridges). They should make parking lots near the highway to let people enjoy the sights, but we Dutch find this all “too normal” and rather take the plane to see the Niagara Falls which we consider far more exciting. Crossing the rivers Waal en Maas means also crossing a cultural border. South of the rivers there is a Roman culture which is recognisable all the way to Gibraltar, North of them the culture is Protestant, recognisable all the way to Hammerfest in Norway. To describe the differences takes too much space here, maybe another time. It’s comparable to the differences between North and South America, although less sharp. Part of the Catholic Southern Netherlands has been allocated to the Dutch kingdom in 1832 AD, although culturally it belonged to the Southern Netherlands together with Flanders which is now the Northern part of Belgium. Since that time the Southern part of the Netherlands and the Northern part of Belgium have gone their own ways, so their inhabitants now feel themselves Dutch and Belgians, although the “Belgians” feel themselves more “Flemish” than “Belgians”and try to separate from the French-speaking Southern part of Belgium. (The Flemish speak an own kind of Dutch). I can imagine that Americans find this rather incomprehensible, but that’s the way it is. In the Balkan people have made war for these identity-issues on small areas of land. Then via Den Bosch and Eindhoven to Bergeijk where I arrived at 11.30, 3.5 hours after my departure in Hurdegaryp. It was on a Sunday morning so there was not much traffic. Of course my brother Wessel was very happy to see me, just like the other inhabitants of the house. They were just watching a video of a motor-biking event (see previous posting) and I could see our passed-away parents on it, rather touching because I saw these pictures for the first time. The radio was unwrapped and admired extensively by everybody. Then, during the welcome-coffee, Wessel started to ask: “We go where?”, because he is used to be taken somewhere each time a brother or sister visits him. One should consider that these people cannot go somewhere whenever they like it, they always need company, just like small children. We decided to go to Postel to have lunch, to a restaurant connected to an abbey in this small Belgian village, it’s only 15 minutes driving and Wessel likes the place very much because he also went there often with his parents when they were alive. There we visited the abbey garden where he caressed a pony (see picture) and the chapel. Although, or maybe just because it was a centre of Catholicism, they also had a shop which was open this Sunday (In the Netherlands with its protestant culture most shops are closed on Sundays), and we bought there cheese, bread, cookies and beer, all produced at the abbey. In the restaurant we enjoyed an “uitsmijter” (eggs and bacon with salad and abbey-bread). Wessel asked the waiter if they had caps for his caps-collection but we told him that monks didn’t have caps which he found a bit disappointing. I also like the place because of the memories it evokes and I decided to go there more often: when I leave earlier we could go to the Holy Mass which Wessel always appreciates very much, especially when it’s celebrated by a whole groups of monks. He finds it fascinating how these men pass their lives, praying and working, and doesn’t stop asking questions about it.

After a well spent day I brought him home and returned to Hurdegaryp, along the same route but now the other way. It was not only the radio I went for.

Wessel

This is my brother Wessel, the youngest one of my six brothers and sisters. He lives in Bergeijk near the Belgian border, south of Eindhoven, in a house where he is taken care of together with six other people who are mentally deprived. His brothers and sisters, living scattered throughout the country, come to visit him every two weeks, each time another brother/sister. He is sixteen years younger than I am, his eldest brother. His parents passed away after one another with a couple of years in-between. He wonderfully overcame these sad events. Tomorrow I am going to bring to him a new radio, one that’s especially designed for being used at construction work, extra strong, to be resistant against Wessel’s treatments (see below). On the picture he is drinking tea with me during our way to my house in Hurdegaryp, which is four hours driving from his house. He loves drinking tea, preferably “with something” (met wat erbij”) such as a piece of cake or pie, but we are careful with that: eating is one of his hobbies but he is aware of the dangers so when we say that we ‘ll take that piece of pie another time he understands. Another hobby of his is music: Elvis Presley and André Rieu are among his Favourites. Furthermore he likes theatre plays in which he often plays, but watching them is also very OK. As most people with Down’s syndrome he is very sociable, and likes company very much. He mostly tries to draw your attention by asking if you are married, if you have children etc. when you are a stranger and we always have to inform him where something he finds interesting can be bought, where it was manufactured, and what you can use it for. He likes to do little household tasks such as preparing food (under supervision), mowing the lawn, dressing the table etc. He lives from one nice event to another such as a birthday, Christmas (when he uses to stay with us), Sinterklaas (a Dutch present-giving tradition on 5 December, from which “Santaclaus” is originated – the Dutch traditionally exchange presents on Sinterklaas instead of 25 December), “trucking day” (truckers give him a lift in their truck), the fancy fair, carnival, “motorbike day” (trips with motorbikers) etc. etc. so he is constantly looking forward. He doesn’t like working, just like many other people. His work is on the children’s farm where he feeds the cattle, cleans the stables etc. He is very important for us. When our parents were still alive, we brothers and sisters used to see each other mostly at family events with our parents, but since they have passed away he has become one of the main reasons to have contact with one another.

Fabrication and Truth

In 1994 I completed the only book I wrote up to now, it was a translation from German into Dutch: the autobiography of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s “Dichtung und Wahrheit”, in which he describes his life up to his early thirties. It became published, I was as proud as a peacock, and the comments in the newspapers were, with one exemption, not too bad. I was fascinated by Goethe, and I still am, because he incorporates for me a way of looking and living that can’t be “covered” by any religion or doctrine, and gives answers to many problems of life. So in his drama “Faust” he lets God say to Mephistopheles: “A good man in his dark urges, is well aware of the right path”. He found himself a poet, in the German sense of the word: a “Dichter”, which means more than somebody who writes poems. The title of his book is mysterious and I postponed its translation until I finished the whole of the book’s translation. Its literal translation would be “Poetry and Truth”. However, at the other side of the spectrum of possible meanings of “Dichtung” it could also mean “Fabrication and Truth”. Nowhere in the book I could find any clue of why Goethe chose this title. The original title was “Aus meinen Leben”, later on he added: “Dichtung und Wahrheit”. Maybe he intended to clarify possible “fabricated” rumours about what happened during his youth and adolescence, by describing the “true” sequence of events, but that was only vague guessing. Until I came across a conversation between him and his friend Merck, hidden between other events and situations, about the relation between reality and poetry. Goethe stated that people often tend to follow, or believe in a fabricated, “poetical” conception of reality (“truth”). I think he thought of his novel “Die Leiden des jungen Werthers” (“The Suffering of the Young Werther”). This novel had become a great success, but it also caused a wave of suicides by young men who had lost their beloved girlfriend. Just like the main figure of the novel had done. Goethe called this phenomenon “translation of poetry into reality”, and saw a whole range of miserable and tragic human activities that could be explained this way, such as religion wars, revolutions, etc. In short, every theory or explaining story could be transferred into reality. Marx hadn’t published his “Kapital” yet, but we know now how this “fabrication” has been put on reality, reality was just the fabrication described in the eyes of the communist beholder. Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”(My Struggle): same story, and one can extend this to the followers of Bin Laden as well. The Catholics and Lutherans found that the Truth was that the Jews had killed Jesus (there were no Romans anymore to accuse) and that it was justified that the Jews were persecuted. And so on, and so on. Goethe added that he would rather see that people would try to transfer reality into poetry. And poetry is what Goethe saw as “description of the real Truth”, yes, a fabrication, but a fabrication inspired by a human sense of reality and a human awareness of the real Truth. A story, novel, theatre piece or other literal piece of art is a reflection of reality symbolised by sequences of actions and situations intended to present what’s really going on in the world. Trying to impose these poetic / theorising fabrications on reality itself (Marx called this “praxis”) can only lead to disasters.

I think this is what Goethe meant by his subtitle, later main title, of his autobiography “Dichtung und Wahrheit”.

Happy birthday, Muhammad!

<- Jacob and the angel, by Rembrandt


Yesterday it was Muhammad Ali’s 65th birthday. The TV paid attention to it and of course we saw pictures of how he looks like nowadays, and his appearance in his glory times. At that time, I remember, I hated boxing because it is the only popular kind of sport that purposely intends to injure the opponent. You can’t see it otherwise, and still see it that way. I found Cassius Clay an arrogant bundle of muscles with a big mouth, and avoided reading about him or watching pictures or movies in which he threatened theatrically his opponents. “I am the greatest”. Yesterday I watched an interview with the European champion of that time, I can’t remember his name, and also the “fight” in which he got beaten up by Muhammad on his way to world championship. It was not a fight, one could only see how our European champion got a few blows and fell down. In the interview he told that from the first second on, he felt that he had not the slightest chance against this “phenomenon”, his only useful function was to serve him because Muhammad had to beat him to become a registered world champion. After the fight one could see how Muhammad put his mighty arm around the shoulders of his victim in a comforting gesture, as if he would say: “It’s not your fault, you did your best, I’m sorry”: the absolute summit of humiliation. He remembered (and it was proven by an old interview fragment) that Ali had said before the match that he would make him a pussycat, because he was Flemish and the lion is the symbol of Flanders, the Northern half of Belgium. So he would turn the lion into a pussycat. Now he says that he was, and still is a big admirer of Muhammad Ali. At that time he found it an honour to get beaten by his idol, and his big hobby now is making pastel drawings portraying Muhammad Ali in all kinds of situations and postures. I must say that this news item now fascinated me. What I saw was a perfect, mighty man, dancing seemingly casually around his “victim”, and before I could notice his fist, also seemingly casually and without noticeable effort, had hit, and again, and again, without interruption of the dancing movements. I found it beautiful, while at the time this actually took place I despised it. I also got aware that these pictures were very rare, normally boxing fights are ugly, showing sweating and hard-working men bumping each other’s faces, or trying to. But this was something different. And I realized the tragedy it involved: Muhammad Ali is now plagued by a cruel disease that gradually takes away his control over his body, and this former European champion was still able to make nice pastel drawings. Also I realised that Muhammad meant a lot for deprived black people in the world, in giving them self-confidence and I understood that his boasting and arrogant language was intended for them. He felt he had to be their role model and wanted to be their mouth by saying “I am the greatest. (and look what I (you) can achieve)”. I heard that Muhammad celebrated his birthday privately with only his family, because of his illness. I find it, although I fully respect his wish, regretful because his illness must not be a cause of shame, if that’s the reason. Our late Prince Claus, husband of our queen, had the same disease and was loved and admired by the Dutch people.

A visit to the port of heaven

In May 2006 a friend of mine and I paid a four-day visit to a monastery. It was a tremendous experience. Please read my report:
It is 2006, May, the fourth, four thirty in the morning and the alarm-clock rings. After a few minutes I am taking a shower, after which I return to my room, I dress and consult the order of the day. I pick up the booklet belonging to the Vigil. Then a bell concert starts, filling the atmosphere with rhythmic, bronze tones widely in the wide surroundings of the Limburg countryside. It is still dark, but the first birds respond to the bells with tiny but clear voices. Bronze and silver. My friend knocks on my door. We walk through several corridors and a patio, and after having climbed some stairs, we enter the chapel, having crossed ourselves with blessed water from a stone bowl. It is an oblong room, the East half of it having the altar in its center, and along the South and North sides three rows of wooden benches. Along the North and South walls a colonnade with simple square columns of brick stones. The other, Western half contains the benches for the faithful visitors who want to attend the functions. Around 3.5 meters above us, a row of square, light-green windows stretches alongside the whole of the top borders of all four walls. Everything is without any ornaments except for twelve simple crosses along the walls and an Eastern Candle, everything square, straight and grey with some green shadowing. After some waiting and joint by other people convoked by the bells, the monks enter the chapel from a door in the Southern wall, a procession of mysteriously rustling black figures, escaped from an illustration in an ancient hand written book of prayers, and fill the rows of benches. Then the singing starts, introduced by a short solo by one monk, and followed by a series of psalms in Latin, sung in Gregorian music style, just the same way as Charlemagne in the ninth century must have heard it. It would continue for the next 45 minutes, the North rows responding every verse sung by the South rows… Click here to get an idea of this wonderful, meditative singing. It's the Benedictine monks who restored it in its original beauty after long and meticulous study.
The morning has several other functions like this: the “prime”, the “laude” and, of course, the Holy Mass. In-between there are short breaks for breakfast and coffee, and, of course, work. The Benedict "slogan" is "ora et labora" which means "pray and work", also and mainly meaning that wotk is prayer (think how this works out if you consider working as a kind os praying). Breakfast and coffee are used separately by monks and guests, the lunch is shared. “Noon meal” would be a better word because it consists of soup, vegetables, potatoes and a dessert on Sundays. The breaks are wonderful liaisons between the ceremonies because of the sunny weather and the landscape. The abbey is located in the South of the Dutch province of Limburg, beautifully embedded in the landscape. Its architecture is world-famous, designed by a fellow-father, Dom. Hans van der Laan, who regretfully passed away only a couple of years ago. Admire it on http://www.benedictusberg.nl/. Connected to it are a bindery, a mason workplace, a bakery, a carpenter’s workplace, and of course there is work to do in the gardens, the kitchens, the housekeeping and last but not least the care for the guests. The abbey functions as far as the guests are concerned, as a kind of hotel, with “proposed” room rates: you are free to give less or more, even nothing at all will not make you a thief. The guests are completely free to attend the functions or to do other things, as long as it is in harmony with the core activity of the abbey, which is praying and working: “ora et labora” as their founding father Benedict (who is also the founding father of all Christian monastery life in the world) ordered.
In the afternoon of the second day of our staying one of the monks loosened himself from the group of brothers he was chatting with in the garden, approached me and said: “Yes, it’s you!” and I also recognised him. I already suspected him to be among the monks, and chose this abbey for our stay to check it. Forty-two years ago he was my classmate at high school, and I remembered him as eager to enter into this Order. Can you imagine? We embraced each other and were very happy that we met again. During the rest of our four-day stay we had some short but impressive talks. He asked why we got the idea to be guests of the abbey. I explained that I wrote an article about Wil Derkse in CHNtimes, and held a presentation about ST. Benedict, both exactly one year ago. I wanted to familiarize myself more with the Order of St. Benedict, and enjoy of course also the benefits of religious reflection in a very special way. As a matter of fact, after my presentation my friend had challenged me to go with him, and so we encouraged each other to take this unfamiliar step. We don’t regret and are determined to repeat it more times. I invite readers of this blog to contact me to repeat the visit I just described. It’s far cheaper than a budget hotel and you get so much more than in a 5 star hotel… Only one small restriction: you have to be male.

About what just happened

ABOUT WHAT JUST HAPPENED

This poem is about what just happened
So before you continue reading:
It’s better to deal with the here and now,
So if you decide to stop reading:
It’s too late, you’ve read it already.
Leave it like it is, otherwise
You continue dealing with
What just happened.
Now you have been dealing
Too much with what just happened,
So leave it and turn to
The here and now again.

Erik Tjallinks.

A top achievement

Today I got the message from my brother Walter in Ede that his heart operation has been a success. What a relief! It was his fourth operation so he nearly got into the Guiness Book of Records. The reason for this one was that the previous one wasn’t carried out correctly. It was also performed by means of the so-called Octopus-method which means that no heart-lung machine was required. Which reduces the chance of infections etc. remarkably. We thank God that He helped him and his family to go through this ordeal. Luckily he is an optimistic type of person and with his operation experience he had much courage and showed a remarkable emotional stability before this exceptional operation. Now both his arms and legs lack a piece of arterial that had to be moved to the area around the heart. Next time (we hope there will be no next time of course) something else has to be figured out. Hopefully he will be able to play guitar again which is his favourite activity that everybody likes so much when he is around.

About evolution theory

Every Friday evening I have my club meeting. My club, that is the freemasons’ lodge in Leeuwarden “De Friesche Trouw”. Now one of the members had brought with him a box full of books because he would move to a smaller house and had no place for his books, so we could look and choose what we liked to take home. Of course I was glad and grateful to take with me a book about the role of islands in the evolutionary process. Written by Dick Hillenius, a famous Dutch biologist and poet (yes, these people exist, too). The book was from 1964 but I found it still worthwhile to read, because of my admiration for the author and because since that date no new revolutionary insights about evolution had been discovered. Of course, also Hillenius admits that the evolution theory is still not 100% proven but he says he finds a discussion with someone who rejects evolution theory as “senseless” as a discussion with someone who is convicted of the flatness of the earth.
I am very interested in evolutionary theory and I believe that it’s true, but what always annoys me is that the hard-core evolutionists seem to include to it a kind of “proof” that God doesn’t exist, or at least has no role in creation. That’s why in America the discussion seems to be between “evolutionists” and “creationists” without any possibility in-between. Recently this “third way” seems to have emerged in the form of “Intelligent Design”, but the discussion tries to put it into the “creationists”-faction. I have read the book by the hard-core evolutionist Daniel C. Dennett “Darwin’s dangerous Idea” which I find one big pamphlet against everybody who tries to smuggle any non-empirically testable cause or influence into evolution theory. The core of what it’s all about, I think, is the mutation of genes. The moment a gene mutates is the “moment of truth”, but exactly those moments are extremely hard to investigate. What research reveals, is only the consequences of mutation of genes, and the scholars guess that it must be radiation and other random influences from the environment that causes genes to mutate. One is even capable of effecting genes manipulation by artificially creating a mutation. When reading Hillenius, I got a bit disappointed because he describes in a very detailed and meticulous way how other researchers studied the development of species on islands. It was interesting though to read that islands give rise to evolutionary developments different from mainland developments (more or just less specialisation, development of giants or very small species, absence of predators, how island populations are devastated as soon as humans enter the shores, etc.). The reason for my disappointment was that I found no clues for Intelligent Design or something like it. Gene mutation was still assumed to be random. The questions remain:
1. Why did life start? Was it a necessity, just as the forming of ice when water gets below 0 degrees Celsius? And if so, what caused this to be a necessity, in other words, to what law of nature does the life and the water obey in their becoming alive or frozen?
Dennett thinks that everything in nature follows what he calls “algorithms”: if situation x occurs, then situation y must follow, more or less like a mathematical formula. The point then is to find and calculate the algorithms. But quantum physics show that at the level of elementary particles the phenomenon of “matter” disappears (weightless particles that are not particles by definition, the weird behaviour of radiation, the unpredictability of particle movements, etc. – which even Einstein couldn’t believe when he stated: “God doesn’t gamble”). So maybe the origin of all that exists is only a matter of coincidence? Did, at a given moment, life start with a co-incidental combination of influences, after which a series of algorithms followed leading to you and me?
2. Do the frequency of genes mutation within a given number of generations justify the assumption that evolutionary changes occur in the pace they do, by chance, as assumed by the evolutionists? I suspect that only in a small number of specific cases this has been calculated, as Hillenius writes. In some instances this has been done to analyse the development of a family of species on isolated islands. Some plant flowers imitate the exact colour and form of a female insect, thus attracting male insects for fertilisation. Or, take caterpillars and certain bird species and insects that exactly look like poisonous or dangerous other animals of totally different species, just to avoid predation. What about the endless examples of perfect mimicry? Can these characteristics be developed in a process of random genes mutation in which from many, many billions of possibilities just the right combinations are selected, during a very long, but limited time period?
3. How come that information in some instances seems to be passed from one living individual to another (almost) simultaneously? I tend to believe in “morphic fields”described by Rupert Sheldrake, and also suspected by Karl Jung. The most beautiful example I find the “cloud of birds” or “cloud of fish”: it has been measured exactly that starlings, that in the autumn often form huge clouds dancing through the air, give each other information about flying movements in a faster way than physically possible. This way the cloud seems to be an autonomously moving creature by itself. I myself find it also a miracle, that despite the enormous speed of electronic waves, Google can give you the right Internet-pages containing a bit of specific information (let’s say a typical sequence of five words) from billions of pages within parts of a second. Has it ever been calculated how this is possible? (I don’t suggest that Google is magic).
4. Dawkins suggests that living creatures are only “vehicles for the genes”, so my genes are more important than myself. What does this mean to my self-concept?
Dawkins seems also to suggest that it would be better if mankind would abolish religion. He is one of the hard-core evolutionists who adhere to the religion of atheists (they would call themselves atheists) because nothing in nature indicates the existence of God: everything is calculable or demonstrable and if it isn’t then it’s a product of mere random chance. Nevertheless these people, mostly scholars and very intelligent biologists, cosmologists, medical professors etc., follow the norms and values of their society. They obey the ten commandments, not by instruction but because they have internalised these norms and values, are polite, won’t hurt anybody, in short, they behave like religious people as well. Confronted with this fact, they will answer: yes, that’s the best way to survive, it follows evolutionist laws. And falling in love or being touched by a piece of music they call a “chemical process” in their brains, and they can identify the brain area where religious experiences are “taking place”. Well, I see it more like this: nature is, no matter how it originated, a given fact that I a, confronted with. I myself am a piece of nature, consisting of the same matter and radiation processes as the physical world I have to cope with to survive. But the graceful thing is that this nature watches itself through my senses, I am a “sense of nature” myself, nature uses me as a sense (or lense?). Prof. Dawkins and prof. Dennett are enabled by nature to “discover” for themselves that there are no indications for the existence of a God. Next time I will publish on this blog a discussion between the theatre hero Faust and a simple farmer’s daughter Gretchen (of course by my hero Goethe) about Who is God. It will be clarified that many people who think there is no God, do have an idea of God but different from the God-concept (if I may use this expression) they see around them as shown by “religious” people and leaders. Goethe writes somewhere that the great philosopher Spinoza was called an atheist because he saw God everywhere, and not only as a Superbeing residing in a place called heaven.
5. How do I fit ethical concepts such as “good” and “evil” into evolutionary theory? I have not the slightest idea.

These are questions that are maybe senseless for many people, but one way or another I refuse to believe that the Great Answer already has been given. I hope I can come back with these (and maybe more) questions and possible (parts of) answers.

A Sunday afternoon walk

<-- Joris, our genuine Frisian stabyhoun (one of the two Frisian internationally ackowledged dog races)

For the first time since weeks the sun is showing herself, and at about twelve we Janine and I decide to benefit from it. The hiding sun however hadn’t been accompanied by low temperatures, yesterday’s TV weatherforecast announced that when the weather kept on like it was, we would “enjoy” the warmest January ever registered in the Netherlands!

Our son prefers to play computergames, but halas! His parents find it better that he joins us for a walk. Our dog Joris of course agrees. We are too lazy to do the 45-minutes walk to our destination, the “Koekoekspaad” a small road through the fields and meadows in the area and go by car. After thus having reduced the walking time to five minutes, we change the warmth and comfort of the car (Ford Focus) for the cold strong wind which I estimate to be around 5 Beaufort. The light, the sky and the landscape compensate amply for it. I don’t know if 9-year old Menno also notices these enjoyments, but anyway he is surrounded by it, and is trying to explain to us several techniques and methods of how to get at certain levels of his now favourite computer games. He is disappointed when a small heap along the path isn’t an owl-ball like he hoped it would be, but an ordinary dog’s excrement. Janine and I discuss several good plans to organise things better in our house: the mail, the bills, etc. I put my cold hand next to hers in her jack pocket, because I hate these discussion topics on an occasion like this. She can’t, however, help to make “useful” remarks and says that my cold hands are caused by my smoking, which is a bad habit indeed. I replied that during the two years I didn’t smoke my hands were also cold. I can’t remember what her answer was. What a different kind of conversations did we have when we just got to know each other and when touching each other’s hands filled us with warm feelings of enjoyment and thrill! (She was also a smoker, then). Anyway, Joris found a sheep, luckily on the other side of the ditch along the path, who didn’t take the effort to rise when he passed and “got punished” by loud barking which she arrogantly ignored. Joris is a genuine swim-dog and for a moment I worried that maybe he would jump into the ditch, but probably even he found it a bit too cold I think. During the walk I made some pictures with my mobilephone. This is really a beautiful place to walk. On the other side of the narrow canal an area is visible, though not accessible, which looks exactly the same way as in the times before the Romans had their empire up to the Rhine river. It’s a paradise and we told Menno that there were most certainly also owls, but that owls are sleeping during the day. Through the leafless branches we could see ochre cane fields of more than three meters high.

Unfortunately more people are attracted to the place so the more time went on, the more crowded it got with walkers (with and without dogs), joggers and cyclists, groups that don’t live in harmony and sometimes get irritated by each other’s presence. On our way back we were overhauled by a cyclist in Tour-de-France outfit. He was irritated by Joris although the animal walked in the grass along the pavement, and shouted to me in the local dialect: “Hûn beethâlde!” ( keep dog online!) but before I could answer he was already 50 meters further. I could imagine that he was irritated by anything that possibly could hinder the steady movements of his legs, but on the other hand I found that this was one of the very few paths in the area where loose dogs were allowed and that he could bike anywhere he would like. We also came across, you won’t believe it, a small engine-driven chariot pulled by six huskies (I think that was the race)! They got trained by a member of a club keeping and training sledding-hounds, but the sledding was imitated by the chariot. I was allowed to take a picture, while our dog was already inside the car. The dogs were really beautiful and we admired their speed : at first we met them half way, they went the other direction until the small village at the end of the path which we didn’t reach, then just before we were at our car again, they were there at the same time.

We drove home and Menno went to his school friend.

A poetic prayer

Prayer by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1813) from his poetry bundle “West-East Collection” (Westöstlicher Divan) One of the most beautiful poems I know – Goethe ends the chapter “Suleika” by it, and lets the reader guess (as usual with Goethe) whether this is a prayer, or one of the many love poems for Suleika in this chapter – thus melting love for the beloved with love for Allah, both stemming from one Divine Love.
First, the original version in German. Then, the English translation by Emily Ezust. As last my translation in Dutch, which is less literal than the English one because I wanted to preserve rime and rhythm. The poem is extremely sensitive to sound and rhythm of syllables, they contribute much to the atmosphere of the poem which brings you in a religious, meditative state of mind. Unfortunately this could not be achieved in the literal English translation, and can only partially be achieved in Dutch which is closer related to German than English is.

GERMAN:

In tausend Formen magst du dich verstecken,
Doch, Allerliebste, gleich erkenn ich dich;
Du magst mit Zauberschleiern dich bedecken,
Allgegenwärt'ge, gleich erkenn ich dich.

An der Zypresse reinstem jungem Streben,
Allschöngewachsne, gleich erkenn ich dich.
In des Kanales reinem Wellenleben,
Allschmeichelhafte, wohl erkenn ich dich.

Wenn steigend sich der Wasserstrahl entfaltet,
Allspielende, wie froh erkenn ich dich!
Wenn Wolke sich gestaltend umgestaltet,
Allmannigfaltge, dort erkenn ich dich.

An des geblümten Schleiers Wiesenteppich,
Allbuntbesternte, schön erkenn ich dich;
Und greift umher ein tausendarmger Eppich,
O Allumklammernde, da kenn ich dich.

Wenn am Gebirg der Morgen sich entzündet,
Gleich, Allerheiternde, begrüß ich dich,
Dann über mir der Himmel rein sich ründet,
Allherzerweiternde, dann atm' ich dich.

Was ich mit äußerm Sinn, mit innerm kenne,
Du Allbelehrende, kenn ich durch dich;
Und wenn ich Allahs Namenhundert nenne,
Mit jedem klingt ein Name nach für Dich.

ENGLISH:

In a thousand different forms you may hide yourself,
but all the same, my best-beloved, I will recognize you;
you may shroud yourself with magic veils
but all the same, my ubiquitous one, I will recognize you.

In the cypress's undefiled, youthful striving,
all the same, my ever-growing beauty, I will recognize you.
In the canal's pristine and lively ripples,
my ever-complimented one, well do I recognize you.

When a spurt of water ascends and unfolds,
my playful one, how merrily I will recognize you!
When a cloud forms itself into a new shape,
my many-splendoured one, I will recognize you there.

In the blossoming, misty carpet of meadow,
my colorful, starry one, I will recognize your beauty;
And if a thousand-armed ivy spreads out its grasp,
o, all-clasping one, I will know you there.

When the morning blazes up beside the mountains,
at once, my cheerful one, I will greet you;
then over me the sky will bend into a pure dome,
my ever-widening heart, then I will breathe you in.

What I know with my outer and inner senses,
I know through you, my teacher;
And when I call Allah's hundred names,
with every one, a name resounds for you.

(Translation copyright © by Emily Ezust, from The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: http://www.lieder.net/)

DUTCH:

In duizend vormen mag u mij verschijnen,
Mijn allerliefste, toch herken ik u.
En achter tovernevelen verdwijnen,
Altegenwoord'ge, toch herken ik u.

In 't jonge, pure streven der cypressen,
Alprachtiggroeiende, herken ik u.
En wil ik dorst met helder water lessen,
Alvleiendlokkende, herken ik u.

Als hoog en wijd de waterstraal opwaaiert,
Alspelende, verheugd herken ik u;
Als vorm na vorm opbouwt de wolkenbaaierd,
Almenigvoudige, herken ik u.

In 't bloemendal dat zich door weiden slin­gert,
Albontbesterde, schoon herken ik u.
Rankt om zich heen de duizendarm'ge wingerd,
O alomvattende, dan ken ik u.

Als hoge kammen 't daglicht op doen vlammen,
Dan, alophelderende, groet ik u,
En 'k boven mij 't azuur zich uit zie spannen,
Alhartverruimende, ik adem u.

Mijn zin kent uit- en innerlijk de dingen
Alonderwijzende, alleen door u.
En mag ik Allah's honderd namen zingen,
Zingt ied're naam een naam zacht na voor u.

(Translation copyright © by Erik K. Tjallinks)

Death penalty: justified or not?

<- Leeuwarden seen along the Trekvaart by P.I. Portier (1774) with gallows on the horizon, next to sail

__________________________________

The death penalty executed on Saddam Hussein shocked part of the world. The Iraqi government promised to have a committee charged with the assignment to investigate the circumstances and the hidden videos connected to the execution. At the same time, they expressed their angriness about the criticisms of the death penalty in general, and Saddam’s execution in particular, uttered by other governments and organisations abroad. In the Dutch media they hoped for a new discussion about death penalty worldwide. There seems to be a deep gap in understanding between countries with, and countries without the death penalty. Death penalty-countries mostly feel that they always have to defend themselves for something they find absolutely normal and regular, and non-death penalty countries seem always convinced of their superior ethics which they try to preach to the death-penalty countries.
I was so lucky to read an interesting article by Prof. Johannes (Hans) A. Mol of the Leiden University about hanging places in Fryslân, which was far more instructive than only an investigation of where the gallows were located in our beautiful province during the late Middle Ages. (J.A. Mol: “Galgen in Laat-Middeleeuws Friesland”, De Vrije Fries, issue 2006). To my surprise it could give, at least partially, an answer to the above question of the gap.

Up to around 1500 AD, Fryslân was a rather primitive society with only rural villages and a small number of little towns ruled by local nobility. A strong central government was lacking, the Frisian rulers were free to uphold their own authority, granted to them by Charlemagne. In those times the old Frisian legislation was maintained with elements reminiscent to pre-Christian times. The main form of punishment for crimes, also murder and other capital crimes, was compensation (“composition” is how the author of the article calls it), simply payment. So if a farmer had been robbed and/or killed, the murderer had to give his own farm or big parts of his possessions to the victim’s family. This soon developed into what we now would find “discriminatory legislation”: if the murderer was too poor for “composition”, he was convicted to death. (To my opinion a remnant of this may be left in the American system of payment of a sum of money to avoid emprisonment before the verdict session). Mol explains that the rare occurrence of death penalties was caused by lack of “penitentiary infrastructure”: there was no capital available to build prisons and execution places. Later on, especially after 1500, legislative power became associated with death penalties. Fryslân had lost is autonomy to high nobility under Charles V and it was common practice in Europe that beheading, hanging and “radbraken” (being stretched on a wheel, having one or more arms/legs broken, and (still living) being put on that wheel on top of a pole as birds’ food) became a privilege of the ruling legislative power who was generally the local authority who had been granted this right from the count or king or whoever ruled the area.
Reading the article one cannot fail getting the impression that civilians of the time saw gallows daily, as we are used to see billboards or McDonalds signs. Mol’s study reveals that the civilians didn’t find this as horrible as we would do, but, on the contrary, they found it reassuring: there was a strong lord who could protect them against disturbers of their “peace”. The word “peace” is identified in the old documents by Mol as the situation which is disturbed by the criminals. Gallows that were empty during a long period of time raised anxiety: apparently the lord wasn’t capable of catching criminals. Investigation also revealed that in this rural area there were (far) more gallows than needed for the very few hangings per year that took place. So, if someone would question their usefulness as crime-preventing instruments, the civilians would almost certainly answer: just because there are so many gallows, there are so few capital crimes!
Mol describes that hangings always took place twice: once in public on the market place or other central point where everybody could watch it, and after that on the permanent gallows, always on a place outside the town or village, preferably near the water side (most preferably near the seaside) at a place well visible from far by as many passers-by as possible. (see illustration, where the gallows are located near a canal, you can see them at the horizon). There they functioned as symbols of “peacekeeping”, as a landmark of a strong government where hard-working, law-abiding and tax-paying citizens didn’t need to be afraid that their “peace of living” would be disturbed, and also as a symbol of local autonomy (they had the right to punish capital crimes).

If we go further back into history, we always see that death penalties are only given to those who threaten the established order, either by rape and murder, or in a political sense. The established order was defined by the supreme authority, ultimately a king or an emperor. If the perpetrator is dead, the order is re-established. As long as he lives, it keeps being threatened, even if he is imprisoned or banned. That’s also why our national hero Johan van Oldenbarneveldt had to be beheaded by our other national hero Prince Maurits, forefather of our queen: Johan represented as a former “elderly statesman” the faction of liberals, of the merchants’ and intellectual elite, whereas the poor people, Calvinist and exhausted by the war against the Spanish, put their hopes on the Orange family. So Vondel wrote about Oldenbarneveldt’s execution: “convicted as a Seneca”, because the old man had been the mentor and teacher of Prince Maurits, who watched from a window how he lost his head. His last words were: “Make it short”. One of the greatest shames in Hollands’ history. Later on when Maurits came into military troubles he sighed: “If only that old dog’s ass were alive!”

Anyway, death penalty seems to have a symbolic function. It’s not deterrent anymore, because it doesn’t seem to decrease crime rates. Its primary function is to show “who is in charge” and give people a sense of safety, which is different from increasing the safety rate. In big countries with a central government, where local threats of disturbing social order is most likely to occur, death penalty is also most likely to be maintained. I don’t think that’s the case in the U.S.A.. In those U.S. States where death penalty still exists, I think it’s the will of most civilians of those states who for whatever reason don’t feel safe, or feel it justified to kill criminals, maybe because they feel they aren’t worth their tax dollars as prisoners, or whatever. Do they want to compare themselves with countries like China or Iran? It’s only a question.

YouTube

Please do NOT go to YouTube.com. I read and heard about it in the media but I snobbishly refused to surf to it: flat and nonsense entertainment fot the dumm masses. But eventually I couldn't help looking around the corner and I opened it. I had to force myself to close the site. What I saw was a dozen short videos of a street crossing in Tokyo, amazing because of the masses crossing: so many people in one place, like an army, passing and walking along each other with absolute no interpersonal communication, running across the roads over the striped paths, many of them their mouths covered with a pollution mask. And flights of home-built jet planes, from Holland of all places, making acrobatic loops and ... (the Dutch word for it is "capriolen", but the Babelfish translation machine first couldn't find this common word, and after I changed it into "kapriolen" it produced "cap sewers" which is the translation of "kap" and "riolen" and has nothing to do with the word I was looking for - Babelfish is really worth its name) anyway, and there were two sky divers (also from Holland, yes!) who before their parachute opened, managed to spread out a big white bed sheet with the words "Gelukkig Nieuwjaar" ("Happy New Year") painted on it, video-ed by a third skydiver.
I can imagine that people get hooked to this site, especially (which I didn't) when you subscribe to it and upload videos by yourself, rate the videos of others and place comments.
I wonder how much time is spent by people to Internet features. There are also lots of games, chatboxes, and other stuff which can absorb you completely, cutting you off from the tangible real world around you. Some of it is genuinely virtual, most of it is semi-virtual. Semi-virtual is the materials that allow you to enrich or improve your insights about the real world, provided that it works out in how you deal with the non-virtual day-to-day world around you, in other words, that you learn something from it. But I'm afraid that many of these games and entertainment stuff has primarily commercial goals. Which doesn't mean that their content isn't worthwhile. I think the YouTube-developers are the biggest freaks of all YouTube subscribers who take money as a nice side-effect. But YOUR goal with the site is YOUR satisfaction of a need that YOU have; the sitemaster knows that and can use it for HIS goal. It's the same with alcoholic drinks. I already noticed on this blog the crazy outsourcing of gameplaying to payed players by busy people who notice that they don't have all the time they need to complete the game they are addicted to.

Anyway, despite myself I think will become a regular "customer" of YouTube. Now make my first video (I feel myself a time traveler from the Stone Age sometimes).

About Fryslân

The stereotype of Fryslân, the Dutch province where I live, is the squared image of Holland abroad: green pastures, farms, fat cattle, sailing boats called skûtsjes (pronounce skootches) and skating. It has its own language, Frysk, shared with some areas in Germany and even Denmark, but in Fryslân the language is still vivid and spoken as daily language by the majority of the inhabitants. Needless to say that the Frysk are a rather conservative people and that any Frysk who wants to make a career (and many Frysk want that!) has to move outside the province. The Frysk has a special word for these emigrants: "Frysk om útens". Totally not fitting into this picture is a company in Dokkum, producing exclusive watches: Van der Gang Watches, even more exclusive than Rolex or Cartier, just because they only produce a few hundreds per year. The owner Mr. Van der Gang however hopes that he will sell more watches abroad and will raise production to 800 per year. Please have a look on their website. Prices are not mentioned, so one can conclude that these are rather high, according to an interview in a Dutch newspaper they are around 6.000 Euro, so that's quite reasonable as compared to Rolexes. And, be honest: a Rolex, isn't that a bit boasting, showing off? Something like a white Mercedes?
In Frysk: "Tige tank Van der Gang, dat jo net fuortgean binne" (thanks Mr. Van der Gang that you didn't leave".

Lying to the Holy Father...

In my posting of yesterday I hoped that the Pope would investigate more thoroughly the CV’s of bishops before they would be promoted to a cardinal or archbishop position. Also I said that I had read (which I did) that Benedict XVI is too much a solo-intellectual. Today, however, I read in my newspaper “Trouw” that Benedict had indeed inquired extensively about Mr. Wielgus before supporting him to become inaugurated as the archbishop of Poland. Only after he had been informed about surveys which demonstrated more than 50% Polish “rejecters” and newspaper articles which revealed the real truth, he withdrew his support and Mr. Wielgus had to resign.
My reasons to be a Roman-Catholic are mainly spiritual: the celebrations, the sacraments, the ways to get as close to God, or, better, to open up your mind for God, are for me best found in the R.C. Church. There was a time in which I didn’t want to be a member of such a church with these hierarchical political rules and machinations, but around a year ago I came back to the Church, accepted the restrictions and swallowed my objections, because I felt God was calling me if I may say so. So, I am a heavy sinner because I married for a second time and in the eyes of the Church I am a bigamist although I am officially divorced fourteen years ago and married again for Dutch law twelve years ago. The Church doesn’t acknowledge this and this prevents me from participation in some important Sacraments. So far, so good. We have an excellent vicar and parish, and nobody gives me the feeling of being expelled or set apart or whatever. This is one of the examples in which you learn that a religion cannot be seen as “one package” that you have to take or leave. In Dutch religious history many protestant churches were born because some people interpreted a bible text in a different way than some other people did, and a new church had been born.

But what happened here in Poland is really unbelievable. First lying to the Pope, then asking for understanding to the faithful, then resignation during the inauguration Mass. Dear Mr. Wielgus, please put on a monk’s habit, scatter ashes on your head, and disappear in a monastery. And also the reaction of Archbishop Glemp: the documents that proved the unreliability of Mr. Wielgus’ words to the Pope were in his words only “loose rags of paper”.

Maybe you have to be a Polish to understand all this. Anyway, the newspaper article concluded that the Polish Church had to adjust itself to changing times.