21 maart 2011

You can't see it












Two landscapes. Two places. Both places have a soul. Just like people's souls, you can't see them. Portrait photos are sometimes said to reveal a person's soul. Well, they don't. A soul will not fit on a single photograph.
Can a place have a soul? Yes, I think so. The soul comprises someone's past, present, and someday one's future. You can feel the soul of a place if you contemplate about it's past and it's present, and think about what might be it's future. But you can not see it. You can only think that you see it.



About the photographs:

TOP: The Polish village of Czerna, which was once the German village of Tschirne.
After World war II, the German inhabitants were driven out of their homes and expelled to Germany, to make room for Poles who were driven out of their homes by the Soviets. At the 1945 Potsdam Conference the Allied had decided that Poland had to leave a large territory to the Soviet Union in the East, and gain German territory in the West as compensation. It is estimated that between 0.5 and 3 million ethnic Germans lost their lives during the expulsion.

BOTTOM: The Col de la Schlucht in the Vosges Mountains (France).
After winning the Franco-Prussian War the German Empire annexed the regions of Alsace and Lorraine in 1871. The new border between the two countries followed the heights of the Vosges, and the Schlucht Pass became an important border crossing.
The humiliation of defeat and the loss of territory led to widespread revanchist feelings among the French, which in turn was one of the reasons why France was so eager to go to war in 1914.
At the beginning of the hostilities in 1914, French troops used the Col de la Schlucht and other passes to invade Alsace. Their assault was quickly stopped by the Germans, and the front established a few miles west of the border. The next four years a bloody trench war was fought on the summits of the Vosges Mountains.







13 maart 2011

Orderly proceedings



The Dutch helicopter crew that was captured by Libyan pro-government forces and held for almost two weeks, after a failed evacuation of two European civilians from Sirte, returned to The Netherlands yesterday after their release two days earlier.

Helicopter pilot Yvonne Niersman's loved one stormed onto the tarmac and the couple fell into each other's arms. Luckily the Commander of the Armed Forces, General Peter van Uhm, quickly intervened and no more disruptions of order were reported.

Photos @Hollandse Hoogte





10 maart 2011

green green grass




So you live in this village that's surrounded by vast meadowland. Grass, grass, grass, wherever you look.
Now you and your fellow villagers decide you need a place for the kids to play football. Of course, you don't want them to play on the grasslands. There are many dirty things lying around there. So what do you do?

Need I ask? You buy a piece of grassland, strip off the grass, carpet it with artificial turf, and there you go. No more dirty kids.
Oh, and a high fence; you don't want the kids to get sweaty running for a ball that went way over, do you?



Photo available @Hollandse Hoogte (keyword: GV110309A)

4 maart 2011

Exit



Jan Peter Balkenende was prime minister from 2002 till 2010. He stepped back after his party (the christian-democratic CDA) lost the elections in June 2010.
Two days ago his party lost again severely at the provincial elections. The current leadership optimistically stated that the loss wasn't more severe than the previous one, though.

Mr. Balkenende is now a university professor and a partner at Ernst & Young. His party honors him with a painted portrait, in a hallway of its headquarters. Next to the emergency exit.



Photo available at Hollandse Hoogte (keyword GV110302A)

2 maart 2011

This is not a traffic sign






This is not a traffic sign. It is a statement. A political statement.

Today is election day in The Netherlands. Today we choose representatives for the provincial administration, who in turn will elect Senate members. The current national government has a minority in Senate, so these are important elections.

For ages the speed limit in The Netherlands has been 120 km/h on motorways. Whatever the speed limit may be, there will always be people who want to go faster, and many of them do.
I have done extensive (though highly unscientific) research lately. My conclusion is that most speeding drivers vote VVD (People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, the party of current PM Mark Rutte).

You can never rule out coincidence, but two days before the elections the Minister of Transport (also VVD) announced that on some remote motorways the speed limit would be raised to 130 km/h, coming into effect the next day. 

Democracy has two faces. People may choose those who they trust to rule their country, or people may choose those who give them what they want. 
Politics is balancing between giving people what they want, and not losing the trust of the people who vote for the wise.




Photo available at Hollandse Hoogte (keyword GV110301)