Holland

I have been emailing with people back and forth about the Hussein execution. One of those people, Dan Jacoby, is one of our contributors at The Daily Gotham. He pointed us an article he wrote two and a half years ago about Where, Not When and may I add, why wasn't Hussein tried by the World Court.

There's a lot of buzz about when the Bush administration is going to turn Saddam Hussein over to some American-appointed Iraqi interim governing body. The question people should be asking, however, is not when we're going to turn him over, but where, and to whom.
Slobodan Milosevic was the tyrannical leader of a country who attacked his neighbors, slaughtered thousands of people, and was eventually captured. He was quite properly turned over to the World Court in The Hague to stand trail for crimes against humanity. Saddam Hussein deserves the same fate. But we're not going to send him to Holland, we're keeping him in Iraq.

Why?

[...]

Chances are neither of these is the real reason for not turning Hussein over to the proper authority. Chances are that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and others are afraid of what will come out in a real, public trial.

As if on cue, CNN is reporting Bush's comments on the execution : He considers Hussein's demise as the end of a fair trial and the beginning of Iraq's new democracy.

About 49 Euros.

In all my years, and they are going to be 40 this next June, I have never, EVER felt comfortable with these posters of Ché Guevara. I find them utterly problematic. Not because I don't think that revolution as a meme is not valid. What bothers me about this particular picture is the almost saintly qualities invested on the man.

Revolution is not pretty, it's never peaceful. Revolution is disruptive and always at a cost. Revolutions are not carried on the shoulders of messiahs, saits, martyrs or virgins. Revolutions are waged by people, common everyday people. Revolutions are not waged by icons or memes but flesh and blood and very mortal people.

What is even more upsetting is that this image of Guevara was popularized by Fidel Castro himself. He sold la revolució as if it were the rapture.

... with none other than with Perez Hilton. We're staying at the Lloyed Hotel and strongly contemplating going to a Liza Minelli concert like the queen and fag had we are.

The flight was uneventful but I am exhausted. Will check-in later. I will leave most of my Amsterdam blogginng to the "Counter Talk" section unless it's something more 'articleish', like my coming post on the Red Light District. But since I will be blogging about the trip, I did a little pimping up of the blog to mark the festivities.

Let the righteous liberal flaming begin.

Am I to believe my all-expenses paid mini-vacation in the Amsterdam is a horrible conspiracy to have the Prime Minister of Holland rub all over me and 23 of my new bestest friends so he can steal our collective sexy birthday mojo?

[via And the least popular party guest is... - Yahoo! News]:

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Branded a petty bourgeois by neighboring Belgium, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende appears to be equally disliked by his own citizens who voted him the most unpopular birthday party guest.

Asked "which Dutch celebrity would you absolutely not want to see at your birthday party?," 12 percent -- the highest proportion of those polled said: Jan Peter Balkenende.

This makes sense. I mean, why would anybody care to invite a loser sellout like me anyhow? Why would organizations like Personal Democracy Forum, LINC Project, South by Southwest, Cable Television Public Affairs Association, NYC Grassroots Media Conference, New American Media, the Association of Asian American Journalists, The Media Center, BlogHer, NARAL, People for the American Way, New Democratic Majority, NYC Democracy for America or any other organizations, journalists and documentarians be interested in anything I have to say about anything I do?

Oh. Wait. I see. I am now on the same league as Jack Abramoff, Armstrong Williams and Doug Bandow? What kind of a moron would equate my going to Amsterdam to maybe smoke some hashish, check out the Anne Frank Museum (which I did not 20 years ago, when I first went to Amsterdam), interview health care officials in the Red Light district and maybe have a couple of beers with my favorite Cuban, Perez Hilton to, and I quote, "curry government favor" by "accepting pampering by people with an agenda".

What.

The.

Fuck.