2001-10-26

De Standaard Online Elisabeth...

More news on the newborn Princess Elisabeth.
101 shots were fired in the Warande - parc in Brussels at noon. Tradition rules in this country...

Perlentaucher

Perlentaucher.de - Literatur im Netz Schriftsteller

Check out this great resource for German Literature...
Yesterday night - conference in the KUB - University / Brussels
The Swiss Writer Thomas Hürlimann gave us a fabulous performance, reading excerpts from his latest book and confronting critics and the public: Reception - investigation of literary works : live!
The local student - association was having a cantus and were consuming tons of beer in the basement.
Outside a man got shot, DOA. The police blocked the whole area.
Returning home: BIG NEWS. Belgium has now for the first time a FEMALE Throne pretendent: Princess Elisabeth, born October 25th.

Seemingly random acts, brought together by the simple fact that one goes to these things.
In front of T.V. we would only have seen the BIG NEWS. And nothing of what "real" life is all about.

::Today::
visit to the ICI & Maintenant - exposition in the monumental building of Tours & Taxis. Fabulous, post-modern (?) and huge collectio
of present-day artists and artefacts who roam in this capital of Europe. (more info on monday @ frogg-umentary).

Now reading: Patrick Roegiers: L'occuliste noyé
and listening to the latest LAMB.

Counter Consumerism - liberate yourself from the screens...

2001-10-23

We experience strange phenomena these days.
1. we feel bad - because it seems that everything is running out of control. Event after event after event, we view the most shocking depiction of what this world has become.
2. we feel bad - because we experience the shallowness of information. Continually swamped by bits, bytes and so-called live images, we've been orphaned of the time so needed for reflection
3. we feel bad - because we're no longer in touch with the things we CAN understand. Who are we, to determine the implications of the globalized events right now. Everything is connected so it seems, but does anyone have an overview - and if they do, are they sharing it with us?

For fear of falling into the conspiracy-freak-trap, have you met anyone recently able to explain you what's going on?
Where's the sense in all this... The starving children, the amputated youngsters, the indoctrination of whole countries. WHAT FOR?
And where do we stand in all this, as ordinary decent (criminal) - citizens of the so-called Free World. Do you condone the shelling by your governement? Hate retaliates - love not. Are there any ethics left?

Has all the backpack travelling, the voyages through ancient continents, the hyperlinking of the world taught us any thing, any insight?
Brother! Where art thou?

People experience fear now, fear for their own material well-being, their hopes and futures, their loans and savings. What about the guys & girls without bank-accounts? Is it a strategic plan to keep them stupid? Ignorant? Hatefull and jealous?

2 years ago, we published some facts concerning the overseas aid to development, quoting from an oficial report... Less than 2% of our GDP's are spent yearly on the 3rd world... But we manage to keep an agricultural industry alive in Europe - artificially. More than 45% of the European Budget goes to this sector, whereas less than 10% work in it. And it's killing our environment. We produce milk, meat,grain, wine, butter, chocolate surplusses by the millions of tons. Some farmers burn off their surplus in order not to get fined. And all the while we bomb 15$ tents to smithereens with high-tech weapons that bring us no peace or safety.

We ALL should do something about this - starting in our own backyard. Get out there, spread the world, the revolution has begun...

2001-10-21

*** Frogg-outlook for the world***

The Beatles have this great song that starts with: " I read the news today, oh Boy,..."

Yesterday, his Frogg-iness, talked to some really interesting friend... This Lady presented all the characteristics of a Modern-Day Western, emancipated, socially-caring GentleWoman. An Immigrant in this country for 40 years, she displayed a shell-shocked state of discomfort with the outbreaks of racism and xenophobia recently. It's like we've ignored all these problems for years...
And now all of a sudden, we realize that it's too late.

Sort of like the Clash of Civilisations brought to a mere mortal. She displayed a panicky behaviour, irrational thinking, carried away by the media-coverage of anthrax-scares worldwide. Prank-calls of dust-filled letters have indeed been swamping the general public worldwide, in this country alone some 250 harmless enveloppes were examined by the Specialized men in their haz-mat suits. This is no fun anymore.


The more you talk to people, the better you can realize how much really everything has changed lately. The first raids of stupid spin-off jokes is calming down, and as the hysteria settles a bit, we are confronted with the EXPERTS::: ranging from biochemical warfare specialists to terrorist experts for the Middle East region.
This shows us 2 things
1. the public is ready to accept anyone as an expert on anything: no more rationale. YOU yourself can become an expert on a very complicated and/or simple matter like toilet-flushing, the man-handling of potentially lethal enveloppes, how to dig a trench in an urban backyard or how to analyze the new... More serious though is the willingness of the public to do away with all PROPER & OWN thinking: we readily accept anybody's (another Expert...) mis-interpretation of this old French POET Nostradamus. It's plain crazy that we accept these translations, read them and mass-forward them to everybody as if this were an exact trans-position of what the poor fellow meant by writing this... Cryptic poetry has always been the source of so-called predictions...

2. the media right now are in a difficult position: they rely on the war-faring countries for (dis)- information. This is very apparent on the VRT - state-owned televised news shows. Anchorman and Woman don't hesitate to hand out the qualification of DISINFORMATION to new from the Taliban... Since there are for the time being no "neutral" reporters in the region, we're confronted with what THEY want us to tell. So the conspiracy-guys must have the times of their lives.... Look at all the incidents of the Last 3 weeks, and you can only deduct that this IS NOT COINCIDENTAL anymore...

So caution... The truth is out there, but we'll probably never find out HOW CYNICAL the truth really is.
- Do YOU accept anything they tell you?
- Do you let your thinking be Controlled?
- Do you let yourself be misled by so-called accurate footage of the latest accurate smart-bomb - NOW with Digital Night Vision...

They better get some marketeers to work on the names of those operations, smart-bombs and special forces.
- DO you care if the latest GBU-26 is flown by a B2-Stealth bomber with laser-vision enhanced and radar-deflecting capabilities???

Or

Do you care about the politics? The meaning of it all, and what this is doing to the world, the environment & the people.
Do you want to spend the rest of your life in fear and agony of the unknown, the different.

We better inform ourselves... After all - we are all equal, on a genetic based scientific level, but yet so different.
Assumez vos responsabilités: vive la différence!
Diversity is a good thing, but it most be on a respectful basis...
We shouldn't be slaughtering eachother in wars. This is UNacceptable...

2001-10-09

Bought some great music today:

- Cigar Lounge
- Buddha Bar III
- Your music - your Lounge

Ideal for those rum-moments at the Tropézina-beach-club
que aprovecheis!

2001-10-02



On the question of nicknames or "handles", read this article in the faq - pages of slashdot.org.
They have a meaning.
Handles are part of our online identity. More often than not, this identity conveys an entirely different message than our given names.

Also people sometimes get frustrated, wondering aloud what the purpose of having multiple handles, emails,... ad infinitum is.
One answer: since it's all free and out there, why not organize your life better.
But... make sure you keep a CODE-BOOK handy, where you note (in real writing) all your different codes and passwords. They shouldn't be stored on your computer...


----------
Today I went for a walk in the park right next door, to sniff the breeze of automn, and to remind myself how ephemeral everything is. If you look at the landscape surrounding your habitat: don't you just wonder how long it has been like that?
Think back a couple of decades, forget about powerlines, stone buildings, traffic lights and roads. And then hug the nearest oak tree, because it has seen a lot of changes recently. Feel the energy that sort of "vibrates" from it, and think him/her for the wonderful job it does releasing oxygen...
Because after all, the tree-huggers may be right: this is it.
Quality of Life, Action for Life Quality of Life Airborne

This project deserves our attention.
Recycling waste and stimulating ununsed resources in companies worldwide. Rock, on QfL!