Springtij: Sustainability Festival in Terschelling

Terschellingen harbor, the Netherlands

Over the last few days, I attended the Springtij Festival, an annual event dealing with sustainability held at the island of Terschelling in the northern Netherlands, surrounded in the north by the North Sea and in the south by the Wadden Sea. In recognition of its biological diversity, parts of the Wadden Sea have been inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage list so this was a very appropriate location to discuss the current state of our world, from climate change and renewable energies, to the crisis in the financial system and new sustainable business innovations.

Just after my arrival with the ferry from Harlingen harbor, in the province of Friesland, to Terschelling on this small, windy, sandy but beautiful island, we went to a shipping hangar where we were welcomed by one of the hosts of Springtij, Wouter van Dieren. van Dieren, one of the founders of the Dutch environmental movement, has been involved in almost every aspect of the environment and sustainability since the late 60s, as a journalist, scientist, entrepreneur and member of many leading organisations such as the Club of Rome and currently President of IMSA Institute of Environment and Systems Analysis. He explained the importance of gathering together to discuss the state of the environment, as time is running out in many respects. He also referred to the conference's theme, i.e. the concept of tipping points: when something changes from one stable state to another stable state, and this change is irreversible, such as

Syria's False Choices and The International Criminal Court

(Syria/Wikimedia CIA)

Although the ground on the Syria crisis has started to shift, at this point we don't know how successful the Russian proposal for Syrian chemical weapons disarmament will be, neither what the response of President Obama and the Congress will be in case of failure. What we do know is how President Obama and his foreign policy team has framed the debate a few weeks ago. Now an intriguing article has been written by Hazel Henderson, well known as a sustainable economist, futurist and author of multiple books, specifically addressing the false dichotomy presented by President Obama and calling for a non-military and legally sound option of referring the perpetrators to the International Criminal Court (ICC.) In her article Averting Another U.S. Foreign Policy Disaster published in The Globalist, Hazel Henderson states:


"So far, the public debate in the United States on what to do about Syria has been largely limited to an almost childishly binary proposition: “Bomb Syria — or do nothing.” President Obama has taken a first step out of this box by correctly throwing the decision on Syria to the U.S. Congress, as required by the U.S. Constitution."

She then acknowledges that due to  Russia's initiative, President Obama has "now a way to put the military strike on hold. But should this initiative fail, there remains a strong possibility — given the grave doubts asserted by many, including military officers and other leaders — that Congress will answer President Obama’s request with a resounding “no” vote."

Henderson, then continues and calls for an alternative to the option of military action:

Djokovic - Nadal: What a Tennis Rally!

Tennis racquets/2005, by Peter Cahusac

Watch this amazing rally between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal at this week's US Open Final in New York. No further commentary necessary.

What Syria and the Financial Crisis Have in Common

(Syria/Wikimedia CIA)

At the eve of President's Obama televised speech to the American people, developments on the "ground" about Syria appear to be changing dramatically. Russia has made a proposal today to avoid a U.S. military strike on Syria by having international monitors take control of the Syrian government’s chemical weapons, while Syria's foreign minister Walid al-Moallem welcomed this proposal. This may turn out to be just a ploy to play for time or it might offer the Obama administration an unexpected way out of this political and diplomatic mess. Whichever it is, it's causing confusion in Washington: the U.S. Senate postponed a vote authorizing an attack, and President Obama's speechwriters will be having a hard time coming up with a speech that will be truthful, up-to-date, and effective. One can also wonder what effective would mean in this increasingly complicated war game.

Against the backdrop of the developments in Syria crisis, Danny Schechter, filmmaker, author, media critic, aka the News Dissector  wrote an article on the disinformation website (published before Russia's proposal became public), titled: Financial Crisis and Impending War Are Converging As Failed Policies Become Self-Fulfilling Prophecies. In this article, Schechter is making an interesting connection about the convergence of two events, the Syria crisis and the upcoming anniversary of 9/11 on the one hand, and on the other hand the anniversary of the financial crisis. Schechter says:

"And, then, there’s the anniversary of the financial crisis which all the military bang-bang is sure to drive off the front pages even as New York Times economist Paul Krugman noted Friday:

“In a few days, we’ll reach the fifth anniversary of the fall of Lehman Brothers — the moment when a recession, which was bad enough, turned into something much scarier. Suddenly, we were looking at the real possibility of economic catastrophe.
And the catastrophe came.”....

.....You can be sure that Obama does not intend to speak about the economic crisis next Tuesday, because he has no real answer to Krugman’s indictment of failed economic policies. One of the architects of that policy, Larry Summers is apparently about to be appointed to head the Federal Reserve Bank for TEN years, despite his pathetic record, with Obama’s support."

Schechter continues:

New van Gogh Discovered

(Van Gogh Selfportrait 1888/Wikimedia)

A new van Gogh painting has been discovered. The director of the van Gogh Museum Axel Rüger said: 

“A discovery of this magnitude has never before occurred in the history of the Van Gogh Museum. It is already a rarity that a new painting can be added to Van Gogh’s oeuvre. But what makes this even more exceptional is that this is a transition work in his oeuvre, and moreover, a 
large painting from a period that is considered by many to be the culmination of his artistic achievement, his period in Arles in the south of France. During this time he also painted world-famous works, such as Sunflowers, The yellow house and The bedroom. The attribution to Van Gogh is based on extensive research into style, technique, paint, canvas, the depiction, Van Gogh’s letters and the provenance.”
  
The New York Times reports :

"For roughly a century, the painting “Sunset at Montmajour” was considered a fake or a copy of a van Gogh, stored unceremoniously in an attic and then held in a private collection, unknown to the public and ignored by art historians. But on Monday, the Van Gogh Museum declared the work a genuine product of the master, calling it a major discovery............

Major League Basball to the Netherlands?

Apparently Major League Baseball wants to start playing games in Europe, and has chosen Hoofddorp, a small town just outside of Amsterdam in the Netherlands This is not as surprising as it sounds as the Netherlands have achieved impressive baseball results over the years: twenty times European Champion and good results at World Championships. See my previous posts: The Netherlands at the World Baseball Classic and  Dutch Win Baseball World Cup. To a large extent these results have been made possible by a strong presence of players from the Dutch Caribbean islands, some of whom also play or have played in MLB.   However, baseball is a still a very small sport in the Netherlands, with 23,000 members of which half play softball. Compare this to the over one million soccer members, a quarter of million field hockey members, and millions of people skating and cycling. But maybe MLB knowing that Holland has always been a good place for American companies to start their European expansion, would offer a bridgehead for Major League Baseball as well. For a complete report, read Building It, and Hoping the Big Leagues Come in The New York Times.

The Botched Case for Intervention in Syria

(Syria/Wikimedia CIA)

Over the last few days, Syria has become front news again, but in a way that shouldn't comfort U.S. foreign policy makers, or anyone else looking for practical and legitimate resolutions in that country. I'll  review the case for a 'limited" U.S. intervention in this civil war-ridden country, which is at best a shaky case, and it definitely is a case botched by President Obama and his foreign policy team. This post will be longer than my usual posts, but this subject warrants more space and explanation.

Let's start with some facts and figures about the Syrian civil war: The country is governed by the authoritarian regime of Bashar al Assad and his minority Alawite Shia community. Protests against this regime started in March 2011; In September 2012, the Red Cross declared the country to be in a civil war. In August, 2012 President Obama made his now famous "red line' warning to Syria that in case chemical weapons would be transported or used in Syria, the U.S. would consider this a critical issue warranting response.

The Upcoming Tsunami of JFK's Assassination Memorabilia

As the commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. are hardly behind us, attention is now shifting to the upcoming 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22. The New York Times reports on the various media and events preparing for this commemoration: 

"newsstands making space for "photo-heavy commemorative issues....bookstores are crowded with new volumes re-examining the single-gunman theory ... movie theaters and television sets will recreate the glory and the tragedy... visitors flocking to the Washington based Newseum exhibit of JFK.  So many authors have seized on the moment that an Amazon.com search turned up about 140 Kennedy-related books being released or rereleased this year..........Next month, Tom Hanks will release “Parkland,” named for the hospital where Kennedy died, ...... ReelzChannel will broadcast a second-gunman documentary called “JFK: The Smoking Gun.” And Stephen Gyllenhaal is making “The Kennedy Detail” about the president’s Secret Service agents, to be released next year,.........etc. etc. " While there may be lot of worthwhile new books, articles and movies being released, I think just reading

Dutch Immigration Worries

The Economist reports in a recent article Overflow on how Dutch politics are changing due to increased worries about immigration from eastern Europe. The Economist describes clearly but also clinically what is going on in the Netherlands with the rise of immigration, without regarding the longer term consequences of a questionable EU policy for the future of a welfare state carefully built up over the last century. It says:

"After a year of recession, with unemployment rising past 7%, the Dutch are increasingly resentful of immigration and of the European Union’s rules that make it unavoidable. Last week the vice-prime minister, Lodewijk Asscher, tapped the resentment. In a newspaper opinion piece (i.e in the British The Independent and also in the Dutch De Volkskrant) co-written with David Goodhart, a British pundit, Mr Asscher likened rising migration to a “Code Orange”, Dutch parlance for a severe flood warning. “In some places,” he wrote, “the dykes are on the point of breaking.....

 Mr Asscher represents the Labour Party half of the Netherlands’ centrist coalition, led by the Liberal prime minister, Mark Rutte. Both parties are threatened by anti-immigration rivals: the Liberals have been leaking voters to the far-right Freedom Party of Geert Wilders, while Labour has lost even more support to the far-left Socialists. Under EU rules, work-permit requirements for Bulgarian and Romanian citizens are due to expire on January 1st, and Labour is worried that an influx of new immigrants would expose it to attack......