I strongly believe that every racist remark should be dealt with, but in the case of Anna John I do not see the point.
Just a few weeks ago she told a delivery boy that he was cute and invited him to undress himself, which he refused of course. The delivery boy was in his teens or early twenties and Anna is in her fifties.
I am not going to say that Anna is a peadophile, because that is a dangerous accusation these days, but that particular action was of a sexist nature and totally uncalled for.

So here we have a sexist blaming a racist. Sometimes life is complicated. What should we do? Stone the woman from Gambia for being a sexist? Or hang Mr. Ribbink for being a racist?

I think they totally deserve each other.

At the age of 85 Bettie Page died. We all know that generations ahead will be looking at photographs showing her in different poses from cute to downright hot, so it is not a complete and definitive goodbye. If I think of Bettie Page, immediately the name Irving Klaw comes to mind — the generous obese photographer who made her famous and - while facing obscenity charges - decided to destroy most of his material. If it had not been for Klaw’s sister who saved a lot of the material few of his photographs and film clips would have survived.
In a way Klaw has been one of the biggest influences in my work. He was not an art photographer like Ralph Gibson, Avedon or Art Kane, photographers who in one way or another “marked” my early photographs, but Klaw made me rethink photography. His works taught me that photography is not just about documenting, glamor, art, perfectionism or balanced compositions. Photography is also a very important vehicle for sexual fantasies that are considered socially undesirable or unacceptable in a specific era or culture.
You can define that as pornography if you please and I do not mind that label at all, but there is something much more humane and caring in delivering fantasies to those who see no reflection of their needs and desires in their day to day existence. A quality that clashes with the strict meaning of the word pornography.
Bettie Page, a very social and religious person, understood that very well too.

The Americans are still sound asleep, although I picture Barack Obama sitting up drinking hot coco. The man looked really tired in the last interview I saw tonight, but in a few hours America will wake up to face a historical election day. Whatever the outcome; this day will go down into history much like the moon landing or the day JFK got shot. One of those ‘where were you when it happened’ days.

Well, I do not very well recall the landing on the moon, but I think I can safely assume that my father was redecorating the house — Yes, he too was always redecorating.

Outside there is a thick early morning fog and I have a tremendous head ache of the paint fumes I slept in and I am a little dizzy because the dust circling me really does not help my COPD. A Leonard Cohen song is on repeat in my head.

Now you can say that I’ve grown bitter
but of this you may be sure
The rich have got their channels in
the bedrooms of the poor
And there’s a mighty judgment coming, but I may be wrong
You see, you hear these funny voices
In the Tower of Song — [ Complete lyrics here ]

I have been following the American Elections on Twitter, which I found was the quickest way to learn about the sense and nonsense of this election. I have heard the words ‘hero’ and ’socialist’ way too often and I have learned that the Dutch and the Americans are more alike than I thought. Both countries, not to be compared in scale or impact, have vast areas of land inhabited by hicks who are scared to death of Muslims and they cling to their phobia like flies on a turd.

It is often said modern societies are two class societies, where the middle class is slowly evaporating, leaving us with the rich and the poor. Actually I think we have passed that point, we now have a two class society based on information and disinformation. Those who are connected to the information stream and those who are not. McCain who does not know how to send an e-mail also ran a campaign that was not taking advantage of contemporary news outlets. With joker Palin on his side those same media crushed most of what he was trying to build and he was left with an audience of hicks, gun fetishists and racists. If there are enough of them in the US to give him the victory he wants still remains to be seen. Obama is in the lead of course, we all know that, but the US elections with their four to five hour waiting lines and legions of lawyers guarding against fraud and malfunction make this election into an event that reminds us of UN supervised elections in Third World countries.

Hopefully Obama’s Change Ideology will be put into effect in a country that seems to be run down by paper shredder bureaucrats and with a little luck we will see an America with less fear, less school shoot outs and most of all less war crimes, but despite the hope I sincerely feel — I still do not see how Obama, who wants more military forces in Afghanistan with an option of policing Pakistan’s borders, will truly better the position of the US globally.

As tough as it is to admit for Europeans that we were responsible for the Holocaust and by doing so indirectly caused instability in the Middle East decades ago, true peace in that region can only be reached through solving the Palestinian problem and this unfortunately cannot be done by supporting Israel as a military super power — blind to international conventions and human rights — just because one is focused on charming Jewish lobbyists in the US.

<<<< I thought Americans would be proud of her nomination, whether we agreed or disagreed with her on the issues. Was I in for a shock. <<<<

This is the attitude that caused the downfall of feminism I guess. We are all supposed to be proud of women if they accomplish something and treat it as a miracle. Reminds me of a National Geographic documentary I once saw: "Look at that monkey cracking a nut with a stone!"

Give me a (US) female candidate who is not too shy to tell the world that she is a devout Christian *and* a lesbian, maybe then I will be impressed. Or a male politician admitting that he is gay without stepping down.

I am not going to flame this article, because I am sure the author means well. And I can also see that most of Palins texts are scripted by a campaign team, so there must be more to her than we get to hear and see. The main reason I post this entry, is because I want to keep the piece for reference in my archive: Voices of a dying breed.

You will find the article here:
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/currents/20081026_Palin_deserves_our_respect.html

Loyal Ameanet friend Norski aka Normano sent me a link to the above video and it made my day.
About a year ago, I guess, a friend asked me to see the Andy Warhol exhibit in Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum. I never liked brick and mortar museums very much and in particular that museum, because of the atmosphere — that all too familiar look in the eyes of Museum curators and staff. “What are you doing here? This is *our* exhibit!”
I may very well misinterpret their attitude, but the least one has to admit is that few museums give their visitors a warm welcome. Instead you feel like being checked in by airport security people. Why is it, I often ask myself, that those people devote their entire lives to the arts? Most artists I know are quite modest — with the exception of the trend hoppers or those who create media hypes for a living, of course.

Opposites attract, I know, but there must be more to it than that.

Since my friend had already visited the Warhol exhibit we skipped the paintings and silk screens and immediately headed for the space where multiple screenings of Warhol movies took place. I was in awe. Although I had seen much of the material more than once I felt I was in paradise. This is was all so well done and so unlike the normal frigid atmosphere of the Stedelijk Museum. In my enthusiasm I got bold and tapped a man wearing a museum tag on the shoulder. “What happened?” I asked him. “Did they fire the entire museum staff?”

I immediately regretted my remark when I saw the look on his face. It took him a few seconds but he actually managed to control his initial anger to inform me that this particular show was curated by a German guest curator. A woman and I forgot her name, which is stupid because I like to see more shows curated by her. Or better, she should be the next managing director of the Stedelijk Museum.

With all my charm I tried to make up for my clumsy remark and the museum stiff actually melted a bit and managed to produce a smile. A very museum like smile of a person who had studied the Mona Lisa too often and too long. But I had a field day — despite the fact that he kept following me the rest of the afternoon with a quality poll and a questionnaire to be filled in — both longer than your average tax form.

Those poor, delicate guardian angels of the Arts living in a world where populism is unstoppable, I thought on my way home. They must suffer immensely. You can almost taste their bitterness when they kick off yet another uncalled for comment with the remark: “There is nothing wrong with populism, but…”

Aboutaleb was the man who told Muslims during a gathering in a Dutch Mosque on the day after Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh was stabbed to death, that “everybody” who did not share the Core Values of Dutch Society should leave on the next plane.

Well, a few more of him in governing positions and I better pack my bags too. Although I obey Dutch laws, I most certainly do *not* share Dutch Core Values. Unlike Mr. Aboutaleb I have only one passport, a Dutch passport, but in the last decade I have learned to despise this country more than any other country in the world. When asked where I come from, I answer Europe and not The Netherlands.

What are these Core Values actually?

Without listing them all; the two main Dutch values that made this country to what it is today are greed (a very Calvinistic virtue) and hypocrisy (fueled by Catholicism and Judaism). These two Core Values have created a nation that pirated the seas and shipped slaves, while slavery was forbidden by law in our own society. No need to elaborate on the greed, The Dutch have created a reputation as pathological cheapskates.

Even today with a country that is hardly visible on a world map our only real competition in the export of illegal narcotics is major league player Colombia. But we like the world to see us as happy freeloaders who invented gay marriage. Well, fuck the Dutch and fuck their Core Values.

In my vision Mr. Aboutaleb finished his integration course with flying colors. To me he is a puppet on a string, hired to control the Muslim society in Rotterdam. A sort of WW II kapo. For the outside world it looks as though we are tolerant enough to appoint a Muslim as mayor, while in fact we are trying to charm the anti-Muslim league by hiring a carefully brainwashed Muslim who has learned to spit on his own roots to make a career.

But I have a different reason for my optimism based on a feeling that I have had since Internet Bubble 1.0. It is as though none of has learned from that bubble. Soon after new mega-sites popped up like YouTube, Facebook and Myspace. These sites represent an enormous amount of capital in the eyes of the owners and those investing in the companies behind these sites, while we all now that being tremendously popular while flushing away millions of dollars in data traffic every month is not always a synonym for a good business strategy. Unless of course… you are willing to cash in on the data that do not actually belong to you, like the personal data fed to servers at sign up.

Some say Internet Bubble 2.0 is around the corner and I say it is already happening. YouTube, the biggest distributor of music clips that do not belong on their servers because of copyright issues, is going to sell music on the Internet. You could compare that with a couple of bootleggers opening a store with alcoholic beverages. And now we will see how they earn back the billions in data traffic they have spent in the last few years. (Especially since their consumer base consists of hard core freeloaders.) From here I wish them the best of luck with that target and I am glad that I am not at Google in the position of accounting watch dog of YouTube. (YT is Google owned for those who did not know.)

For at least two years banks in Europe have refused to lend money to companies owning adult related sites because of “the high risks involved”. That is why we at AmeaNet, a tiny company with modest growth and a none-fictional relationship between debit and credit were not allowed to expand. I was actually rolling over the floor laughing when I saw those same banks folding in the recent crises. (I haven’t seen many adult sites folding lately, have you?) I was once again reminded by the main rule I live by since 2001: Those who are not to be trusted will not trust you, no matter what you do.

These banks have been plundered by a breed of investors and business men/women we will see slowly disappear in the coming years. The words “fraudulent actions” were rarely used in the beginning of the crises but now that everybody is starting to understand that you and I are going to pay the bill for all that mismanagement instead of the likes of the Fortune 500 CEO’s, the terminology used to describe this crises is changing rapidly.

In 2002 I was forced to buy back half of my business (founded in 1994) for a ludicrous amount of money and for the last years I have been cutting down costs to a point where I no longer know what a regular weekend, or a simple night out feels like. So I have been in this crises since 2002 and I have learned to cope with it.

Instead of joining the demoralized souls on the web, we are going to expand heavily in the coming year. And no, we don’t need investors, banks or multi-millionaire friends, we have become very savvy in running sites at very low budgets. We hope you will join us in the fun!

This week however I almost felt sorry for US citizens. First a lot of them lose their jobs, then they lose their homes and in the end their economy collapses under the weight of consumer and government spending and what does their president (elected twice) do? He comes up with a plan that could have been invented by one of the early economy strategists of the old USSR.

Money gone? No problem. We will just print more.

Because basically that is what it boils down to and you can do that in a virtual economy as long as you own enough clean shaven, nerdy looking economists who show off their optimism in the media in a vain attempt to reassure the people that they are not investing their money in a crapper.

Of course Obama and McCain applaud this free market intervention and Bush may get to finish his second term without too much market mayhem after all. The US tax payers who have lost jobs and housing will soon find new and worse paid jobs so that they will be able to dump their tax money in a bottomless pit that is mainly set up to protect the fattest cats of that same banking system that brought them on their knees in the first place. They are asked to pay twice for the house they lost to the bank. And as good working bees they will do that without too much moaning. Yes sir, thank you sir. As long as they can keep their pitiful jobs. I have said it before; Americans are great workers and lousy philosophers.

Since last week I am all for cultural exchanges between older Russian citizens and Americans. The older Russians still know how it is to suffer under government controlled markets.

You will say I am cynical. This government bail-out of the banking system will prevent us from total market failure and long lasting economical depression. I hope you are right. My worry is not that an orchestrated virtual world economy will collapse sooner or later. Chances are it won’t, just because of its virtual nature but I see a danger lurking in the East. Those nice smiling Asians have been keeping the world money market afloat for some time now. That makes sense too, because you know what they say about Asians; they like to gamble. They have a tradition in gambling, they have become pros in risk management. Professional gamblers don’t blink an eye when they work the numbers until the right one pops up, but they usually know when it is time to leave the table too.

My guess is that the bottom of the market will fall out from under our asses one day, when we in the Western world are still sound asleep — at the opening of the trading markets in the East. After all, they have bailed us out of a large economical depression, not Mr. Bush and certainly not McCain or Obama. Why should the Asians leave the table while the game is still hot and the stakes are high? After all they depend on us, they want to sell goods to us. Well, history has taught these same Asians some very nasty lessons about us in the West. They might dump us for reasons that no economist can foresee. Maybe now we need historians and anthropologists to predict the market.

Or psychologists, maybe? Gamblers can become destructive quite suddenly for no apparent reason. Ask your local addiction specialist.

[update October 10th]
I thought it would take more time, but today in Tokio the market plunged to a four year low at the opening and Europe followed with a less spectacular but alarming drop.

As a web designer I have some idea of how many sites I created since 1995. I could even give you an exact number by going through my backup disks, but the buttons… A single site can contain over two hundred buttons. A trivial thought, I know, but that question suddenly became of overwhelming importance to me. When I managed to concentrate on my guest again, I noticed that my partner had already answered for me. For a moment there I wanted to bring up the subject of creating website buttons but I managed to keep silent.

It all started with butb.gif, a nice flat back button, made in 1995. I still use it. In fact I am going to use it today for a website that already has 3D buttons out of the box and I do sincerely hate buttons that try to visually pop out of a flat screen. Call me old-fashioned.

After my death I will be remembered by a few as a pornographer, a dirty old man, an ever recovering alcoholic maybe and nobody will see the dedication with which I have flattened out 3D buttons all over the web. For some reason that brought on a very gloomy mood today.

Here it is:

Of course the functionality can be easily adjusted by just rotating it:
    
I know it is not a Rembrandt and it should have been square and not one pixel off, but it has been clicked on billions of times in almost 14 years and while typing this I also realize why that question of my guest triggered my thoughts on the subject of buttons.

This is what we had all been waiting for; the well-trained men, carefully shaven from top to bottom. Somehow there were fewer of them this year - at least in my perception. At times I had the feeling that the spectators were most definitely upstaging the parade. That is what happens when events like this turn more political every year, I guess. It chases away participants who are “all looks” and no brains. What a loss to society!