Tag: politics

  • Brexit-vote against the global city

    Read in The Independent of 24 June 2016:   The Dutch presidency of the EU in the first half of 2016 ends with a Brexit. Well done. In Amsterdam, where all the EU-meetings were held, we can put away the flags. The party is over. The young and fragile Urban Agenda of the EU will…

  • Bombing does not help

    Seen in the Opera house, Amsterdam, on Friday 13 November 2015:   Strange. Very strange indeed. On Friday night, while we were enjoying ‘Dialogues des Carmélites’ of Francis Poulenc at the Amsterdam Opera and were captured by the killing of all those nuns in revolutionary Paris by the mob’s guillotine – the end scene of…

  • Keep it light

    Discussed in the House of Lords (Eerste Kamer) in The Hague on 1 October 2015: The conference was about ‘Contours of the Third Century of the Dutch Kingdom’ in the House of Lords (Eerste Kamer) at the Binnenhof in The Hague. The seminar was organized by the Scientific Advisory Board of the Dutch Government (WRR)…