E-day

Oh hey, we had election day in Belgium. And 30% of  60% of the Belgians voted for one party and, like, it's a sign!!!!!
Of course, not quite the same sign as another 30% of the same 60% gave when telling that the leader of said party winning with a MAJORITY (we're not so big on calculus obviously) should be sent to an uninhabited island, but hey.
Polls are polls, elections are elections.

To all the blablah naynay notquite people I say that the discourse sounds to much like:

The NVA concept of the ideal social system was called the “people's community”. The NVA used propaganda and economic and social policy to win the population's commitment to the community. After the turbulent years of the PS, many people saw BDW as the guarantor of strength, security and a better future.

At the same time, the NVA never hid the fact that the “people's community” did not necessarily include every Flem.

 Ladida. 

On a whole other subject matter, we might have gotten a lead on the Gang of Nivelles, but who cares?  Only the people who own 10% of Belgium's riches, i.e.1%, because we've always know they were involved in that particular pile of shit.

Booyah!

So, I'm back, dearest digiblips, from a wonderful long trip in the underbelly of the world *shrug* what can I say, I fell off the edge. Very super short update?

- even if it's still spring, it's actually summer. fleas and ticks, and pollen, and it's a jungle out there
- reading, reading, reading like a maniac
- still no government in poor old Belgium, while politicians are still at it, beating the zombified horses
- the world remains a scary place, even if Al Qaeda lost its sugar daddy: North Africa and the Middle East are on fire, causing bewilderment in Europe, while the massive emigration movement causes cracks upon the cracks the banking crisis left; the Big One or his little brother caused a nuclear disaster in Japan, just in time for Chernobyl's anniversary; and it's okay to shoot bad people if it's in another country than your own; God's own vacuum doing overtime during a super tornado outbreak, and it's not even 2012!
- I quit the job, because that certainly was not working for me
- fencing-wise, I've been engaging my medial shin muscle in excessive amounts of eccentric muscle activity, and now I've got periostitic shin splints, yay!
- I got tired of getting lost with the car when I don't have my flesh-and-bones tomtom along and bought a GPS. I changed the voice settings (the default chic and smart Flemish or Dutch "named" voices are annoying, sounding too much like *I* am the idiot). Now it talks like a robot woman with half a brain, and who can't decide whether she's from Holland or France. Which is just poifect to my Belgian senses!

Oh, and while I haven't been talking much to the Cow Watcher, I've got this funny feeling he's decided the solution to the Barynn (monster) trilogy is actually simple: make it FOUR books *headdesk*
*mumbles* and I wasn't even working on B *headdesk*

21 days

21 days later
I've got this ear infection bug pretty much conquered, no matter the allies it brought along (renewed sinusitis, flu and the common cold as finalizer).
In between the reading and sleeping and dragging myself through the days, I've managed to renew my efforts on the Barynn Companion. Some while ago I had decided on the form (geographical data, with history, biology and whatnot attached), and now I'm about half-way with gathering all the bits of data from my notes, digital or ink&paper, and integrating and checking all that into a single document. What makes this job huge is not the amount of data but the alertness I must display for typos (since part of the job consists of rebuilding the dictionaries for the spellchecker) and misidentifications (which was one of the main reasons to have a Companion). While I'm happy of the progress, I must admit that the pure administrative side of the job is terrible boring. Poke-yourself-in-the-eye boring.

Meanwhile ideas flit in and out the dark recesses where the Cow Watcher watches the Dungeon-Crawlers, throwing helpful hints in my face that will help delete over 20 pages from Barynn 1 while I'm dead-set on not working any further on any Barynn until the Companion is finished. Scritchyscratch with the pen in the little notebook and hope I remember to check my new set of notes before I start editing.

Belgium, the inventors of redundancy in politics.
And while all this happens, Belgium is still the political faerieland it was, with nothing moving, nothing changing, politicians trying to put the holy fear of bankruptcy in our hearts (to gloss over the fact they stockpiled debts to bail out banks that are now back to their regular business of golden handshakes instead of helping the small and medium business survive), and the people being mostly to busy calling each other rotten fish on facebook and other online media instead of thinking before they speak, and picking up the good ol' pitchfork and show them idjuts what democracy means.

meep meep

haz work changes: roster will change to 3 days a week, since it's no use going for a half-time job and sitting the other half of my time on a train or in a station waiting for one. yay!

done some writing on train/lunch break. with pen and paper !gasp! and also a bit on laptop. editing Barynn 1 to make voice and shtuff fit with Barynn 2. this might be a never-ending-cycle, digiblips. thought about that while thinking of some ideas I had to fiddle a bit with Dreams of Cold Stone, and realized editors must be like cameras: it's only when the manuscript passes through their lenses that it becomes immutable, capturing the moment.

started Palmer's Version 43, stuttered. He does annoying characters a bit too well.

picked up Abraham's 2nd omnibus Season of War and breezed through that instead. hooked hubby on Stross, hubby went out and bought all the Stross he could find. now I need a ladder to tackle my to-be-read pile. methinks whenever vampire/Moscow nights runs out of steam, there will be Laundry universe waiting.

hubby also bought all the Le Carré he could find for rereading. keeps telling me I really should read some. I eye the TBR pile and make non-committal noises, or mumble something about him really needing to finish the beta-reading of Tiger of Opal and trying not to sarcasnap about how Le Carré is the new Pynchon in the house.

it snowed. thawed a bit. snowed some more. and some more. making that going to work thing just that little bit more interesting.

some of the flux (not work) imploxidated all over the place. my head turned itself inside out and is now in a much better place. picked up Version 43 again. and finished. note-to-self: need to put a cnepur backup on laptop so I can prep the blog on train (or in station).

started Rajaniemi's Quantum Thief. like the story sofar though it took a while for the narrative to hold my attention, in spite of all the interesting new words, because you see, I don't like your similes, sir, no siree, don't like them at all.

meanwhile still no new government in Belgium:

• good point: apparently not having panicky egos at the helm helped to stabilize the economy, though they keep telling us that's a fluke, an illusion that won't hold until tomorrow, don't believe the hype pretty please
• good point: since the ship doesn't sink, it dawns on the sailors that maybe they don't really need that many captains, mm?
• bad point: during the slow but steady negotiations (they're talking about really big reforms, so give them time and space) it becomes more and more apparent that Europe is like a nirvana and all the serious, experienced politicians of this small but confusing country have transcended the last couple of years leaving only the idiots in this quagmire of communities, languages, and egos. we're left with the dregs, damnit
• bad point: some minor routine stuff running afoul, for instance the signatures needed to hand social institutes the money they've been alotted in budget need to come from areal/ full government. so some governmental social institutes had to loan money from real banks to pay the needy (at stellar rates of course, like as if society ever did something for the banks, innit just so?), meaning said institutes will have less to hand out to the needy, or need more of my tax euros than foreseen which I would be okay with if it wasn't simply to hand some more tax money to the banks. they've already got their fair share for the next century or so, I'd say.

In all: all Belgium seems to need is a Harry Tuttle.

whirligig

One that went down some rapids. That's how I feel. Things been moving fast, all things, in all directions, but things are finally looking up. Short and quick update:

I haz work, 18h in 4 days. Transport to and from work is the absolute epitome of what makes Belgium Belgium, which means for what is basically about 35km in distance I can go by car (1h30 drive in morning traffic if it goes well) or public transport: 2 buses, or 2 trains, or 1 or 2 trains and a bus, or 3 trains, all combinations averaging in principle on 1h, which I can live with if not for the fact that the 2nd train is ALWAYS late, and the either/or choice means the season ticket becomes expensive in case I don't use the bus, and I don't want to use the bus anyways.
See, I'm a "cured" car-sickness person. As a kid, mom or dad always put some anti-emetic in me, and it was no silly ritual. I remember being yanked out of the car at high speed and being held over the gutter so I could safely puke my guts out. Nowadays I only get carsick 1% of the time, and I can on good days even read! Buses tend to have a lower success rate, because of the being packed, usually too hot and smelly, the weird turning motions, not to mention speed bumps and roundabouts.
But trains I've solidly conquered. Only in 0.0001% of the time I might get a queasy stomach, so I prefer the train for transport any day: at least I can write and read without having to take drugs. And if I'm going to lose time by being shuttled from one place to another like cattle, I prefer to do something useful at the time, and somehow trying very hard not to blow chunks in the driver's neck is not what I deem useful. The driver might have another opinion of course.
Anyways, the train route to and from work is something that belongs in Alice's dreamworld or a Brazil bureaucracy: coming and going ain't the same. Even the hour makes a difference in at what station I have to make the connection with the second train. And then considering that with every passing year trains are riding less punctual, you can imagine that this shifting world needs some adapting to before I can slog the laptop along.
But! Cow Watcher has been busy, and with rewriting Barynn 1 no less, and also kicking around some new ideas.The incubator is running at full speed, digiblips, and this is good news!

Anyways, meanwhile I had to content myself with books that other people wrote. I finished Palmer's Red Claw (*love*), struggled through Charlie Stross' Atrocity Archives (struggle was my own head's fault: shifting world, getting up at silly hours to go to work, getting head filled with new important information about what job entails, waiting long time for trains that may or may not come, and then being just the halfbreed nerd that gets stalled on the technobabble because I know too little or too much), breezed through Daniel Abraham's Shadow and Betrayal in 4 days so much did I love it. I'm considering what to pick for the train tomorrow, but I think reading 600-some pages in 4 days has sprained my reading muscle. I'll see what entices me come morning.

Oh, and we're having a polar week, snow included. And guess who once again forgot to buy salt to ice-proof the pavement and bicycle lane in front of the house, mm? Tomorrow morning is going to be interesting indeed...

Jitterbugs

There's still some fallout drifting past from someone's misinterpreted brainfart, like snow or dandruff. Little things bug me in what people say in their fierce condemnation of said brainfart, because while most comments or open letters about said brainfart are quite thoughtful, some of those thoughtful people proceed to run into the same fail. Not race fail. Not religion fail. Word fail. Thought fail. In a discussion about morals and ethics, I consider that pretty bad shit, digiblips.

This afternoon, a bug bit me when Shaun Duke/SMD over at his blog, World In a Satin Bag, added some more beating of the dead horse by beating someone else beating a dead horse. But then I figured, hey, enough dead horses already, and who's going to eat all that?

Yet I couldn't refrain from skimming the reactions, where another huge bug but me while I read Dave Baxter's comment:

I still disagree with you, SMD, that Moon displayed politics worthy of a boycott (though they were faulty, I still fail to perceive the majority of stances you claimed she'd supported with that controversial post), but yeah, this guy's "If you boycott, then we'll boycott you" is the beginning of a Middle East style never-ending sense of victimization on all sides.
"Middle East style never-ending sense of victimization on all sides"? Does the Middle East have sole right, or enough right to make it a style, to "never-ending sense of victimization on all sides"? Why could he not have made that statement without adding "Middle East style"? Or supplant it with, oh, myriad of choices here.... Belgian style (Flemish-Walloon)? Irish style (Protestant-Catholic)? Eastern Europe style (Balkans, anyone?). Central African (ehm, go ahead, close your eyes and put your finger on a map of the area; I'm sure there's a story that makes it a perfect fit)... How about Cold War style?
Considering the context I think "Middle East style" is a really really really bad choice of words to voice your thoughts. And fuzzy: what Middle East we talking about? Israel/Palestine? Bahrain? Egypt? Iraq?

Then, closer to home: in the cached and saved and widely spread around comment section of Elizabeth Moon's post, a bug bit me in the ass when I read Rhipowered's comment:

The line-up confuses me. What do France, Belgium and Switzerland have in common, and, by omission, have not in common with the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, UK...?
Seeing how later on France's burqa ban is mentioned, I'm left to assume it's about veils and burqas. But even then I don't see the logic of the line-up. The discussion on a burqa ban has been raging in the Netherlands since late 2005. As far as I can see, the Swiss are also "just talking" about the issue. What about Denmark? They have partial bans in place...

True, the Belgian law concerning face-obscuring wear, still in the making I think due to the whole having no real government and overall there being more of a political jihad between Flemish and Walloon for over quite some months now, has in the media always been called the burqa law (and boy do I love the media!). I trust the senate to make sure there's no slanted letter or word in the law's make-up that could make it even in the most LSD infected interpretation a law against burqas.
The law is in fact the federalisation of what local law has been saying from olden times: your face must be recognisable in public. This ties in into Belgium's concept of privacy and public security, which might be difficult to understand in a country that goes apeshit each time something along the lines of an ID card is mentioned. See, in Belgium, the street is considered a public arena. As a citizen I have rights and plights in that arena. One of the plights is: I have to have my ID on me at all times. This is the means by which I can prove to the cops that I have rights as a citizen. I do not have the right to be drunk in public. I do not have the right to run around naked in public. Not sure about fornication in public, but in any case, the rule of thumb is: don't do things in public you don't want your mommy to find out, right? If your neighbour sees you humping someone who is not your wife in public, you cannot sue him for invasion of privacy, all right? I do not have the right to ask a fellow citizen for his ID, that's privacy at work, and if you catch me standing on a box to try to peek in through your window to see what you doing with that woman who is not your wife, you can sue me for invasion of privacy even if I'm standing in the street. However, I do have the right to be able to identify any and all people hanging around in the public arena. That is my security against burglars, rapists, and all sorts of people that hide their face in order to do wrong.
Sadly this upsets a handful of people that have no evil in mind. Some are burqa-wearing Muslimas (I've seen estimations of 30 to 100, this on 10 million Belgians), who will probably be confined to the house if and when the law becomes active. It will probably upset a biker or two who in his haste to buy cigarettes or sumfin' might catch a cop in a bad mood. That is the price they will pay to keep our public arena safe and equal. They might be asked for ID. They might be asked to explain themselves or get a fine. Just like drunks might. Or not. And yes, the public has to keep a really close eye on the workings of the federal police, because yes, there are sadly far too many incidents that smack of racism.

So, all this considered, I'd like to invite rhipowered to do his own homework: I'm sure in the UK that all people are equal, are treated equal, that classes are in more than just name a thing of the past, and everybody lives the happy and carefree life of equal citizens: not afraid from fellow citizens and not afraid from government or its servants.

And then I'll raise you a veil-wearing MP. Where's yours?

loose-handed priests

The endtimes crawl closer on that quirky entity called Belgium. But if we're lucky enough the mediahounds' and plebs' attention will be drawn away to more important matters (our very own Catholic Church & pedophilia! With extras content and extensions!) long enough for the political nitwits do get down to real business again.

Catholic Church issues always make me feel quirky. People commenting on Catholic Church business makes me even more so, and with our very own pedophile priest scandals spread all over the news, people are coming out of the woodwork with opinions of what the Church should do. Not that they ever go to church, except for on the important Church days maybe, like a wedding in white or a baptism or two. Of, once more, people that do not regularly go to church.

It's the fallacy of Western thought that someone not subjecting him or herself to the Catholic rites has the right to be heard by Mr Chief of the Catholic Church. It's the collision of everyday socialist/democratic values and what is the very core of the Catholic Church: the Catholic Church is in no way intended to be by the people, for the people. Previous pope helped muddy that issue, current pope would rather have a clear line drawn. It's his call, it's his church. Complaining about how the church ain't doing what you, the people, think it needs to do, is like demanding Tesco to sell Asda Smart Price items because that's what you want. Can you hear the big honchos go: Come again?

And let's be honest, with only 1 Catholic, not even necessarily a church going one, against 10 from regions where people actually do attend mass and wholeheartedly support the church, you really think your opinion matters?

Pfah, the question in such issues is never what the church should or shouldn't do. The real question is: why is the police not hauling pedophile priest's ass to the interrogation room with about the same respect as they would a suspect imam's?

I grow up and drag along in my suitcase...

With all the Is A Crisis, Is Not A Crisis* going on in Belgium the last couple of months, I figured it must be a really strange country young Belgians live in. Literally all of their life they've been seeing politicians shout and behave like adolescent shitheads or have talks that seem to go nowhere about things only politicians comprehend. They grow up in a Belgium where politicians continually polarize any problem in the country into something from one or the other side of the language barrier.

* sung on the melody of Soul Coughing's Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago

That train of thought got me thinking about what subjects from Belgium or international politics pierced the shell of my oblivious childhood years to leave a lasting influence on my then naive, nay, unformed view on the world outside.

World politics were incomprehensible. Absolutely. Bernard Benson's Peacebook offered a solution quite as simple as letting a little boy ask why big mean old people don't kiss and make up and then have them realize the kid is right. Can I have a collective "Awww that's so kewt"

And while harbouring that Peacebook dream all warm and fuzzy inside, I notice people digging out nuclear shelters in their backyards, even in little old Belgium. Mad Max beyond Thunderdome (1985) only fuels the easily titillated imagination of a child: this is what the end of the world looks like!

Then, 1986, cherry on the pie: spending lunchbreaks at school looking at the sky to see if you can see the poisonous cloud that's blowing in from Chernobyl.
Wait for the icing on this childhood's cake, darling digiblips: SEEING WHEN THE WIND BLOWS DOES NOT HELP OKAY??!!

Damn the world was a scary place back then!
But it did prepare me for whatever shit the world throws me now, from tsunamis in faraway countries to global warming and being an actual jinx for England whenever I visit (terrorist attacks, major strikes), to the End of Belgium. Nothing short of the true Apocalypse can rattle my cage, heh.

On the smaller--Belgian--scale, politics were zzzzzz boring, and televised debates were a contest in conservative fashions and nasal mumblings.
Nonetheless there was some scary shit going on!

Scariest mofos from childhood are the Nijvel Gang/Brabant Massacres, brutal gangsters active from 1982 to 1985, killing, torturing and plundering whatever they came across. The news speaks of pursuits and shootouts with police but on television it still looks like a contest in conservative fashions and nasal mumblings instead of CHIPS. The only exciting piece is the getaway car: a white Golf GTI. Suddenly, EVERYBODY wants a GTI. Dude, the cops can't catch up!

Then there's the very confusing (for kiddies) terrorism of the Cellules Communistes Combattantes, CCC in short. They were EVIL, I mean communist, bombs, links to all those other and certainly more deadly redski terrorists like Rote Armee Fraktion and Action Directe. But let's be honest: if you're turning in your own bombs, and giving the public services enough time to clear the area, you're way nicer than the *real* European terrorists. In the end the only deaths involving a CCC bombing occurred after an error in communication between public services, and this error may or may not have been deliberate, given the unexplained issues that surround both cases.

Good horror only functions if some of it is unresolved and left to fester.
Growing out of '80s childhood I find myself nearly trapped in that nightmare scene from American Werewolf in London: with the Gulf War the Mad Max reality can't be far behind, Chernobyl is on fire, and
legal prying and journalist investigations into unexplained issue and mysteries surrounding the CCC as well as the Nijvel Gang offer links with US stay-behind politics against communist influence. This brings the idea home of what a Cold WAR means. Nothing can be proven, though; it's all out there in the same fuzzball as Gladio, P2 and the fuzzpluzz which may or may not be named Echelon.


All in all, I guess my cold-hearted, cool-headed and sometimes acidly sarcastic worldview is not a surprise after all. Seeing all the truths and lies and love&rockets going on on my TV screen, I wonder what the world will look like to them kids when they're all grown up...

BE = headdesk

My words of last week were hardly spoken or the shit hit the fan. The last week following the news on the preformation was severely *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*

Luckily for les petits Belges, everybody outside Belgium is looking the other way (tsktsk-ing at le Sarko in France, or trying to figure out what to make of the Middle -East talks) or staring at their own navel (tomatoes for Blair & Labour infighting, the Dutch are busy with their own government formation, and in Germany they're busy booting a racist from the Bundesbank board). It could have been a terrible embarrassment.

Without wanting to add oil to the fire, but extremely nauseated by dimwitted online comments from countrymen, I do however feel the urgent need to explain the following:

If Flanders goes independent we'll take Brussels with us (why1: because it's *ours*; why2: if we're not going to take it with us, then why make such a damned fuss over BHV?).
If we take Brussels with us, we'll be taking all the French-speaking inhabitants of Brussels with us (we can negotiate on foreigners like EU or US citizens). This French-speaking minority in New Flanders will have all the rights that go with that status. This means giving up all the small annoyances our Belgian law now let's us heap onto their heads: apparently we're not supposed to harass minorities. Unless, of course, when we do kick out those EU foreigners and don't accede as New Flanders to the EU. Screw the lot of 'em.

Nutshell: more rights for the French-speaking inhabitants in New Flanders. And we still end up having to pay for Brussels, but without the help of the Walloons this time. How is this the solution to the problems you define?



Anyways, < / rant>. I'll leave you lot with two snapshots from architectural ornaments in Tours I feel are quite appropriate:

Man tearing a Lion in half & Man showing his Butt and airing his Klokkenspiel

In the land of Beer and Fries

74 days have come and gone since the elections. The same elections that shook Belgium on its foundations, the one where -whatever your political interest or inclination- as a Belgian your only response -in whatever tonality, joy or glee or desperation- was: OH CRAP!

To the north: landslide win of Flemish Nationalists, whose leader saw (strangely intelligent for a Nationalist) that victory coming well enough to tone down his discourse on tearing apart Belgium

To the south: comfortable victory of Walloon Socialists, a party that has been lead by an amiable looking man who loves his fellow man (as in homosexual), but who nevertheless has shown resilience, authority and unforgivingness worthy of his Italian roots when dealing with scandals in his party.

The stage was set for a civil war!!!!!!!!


Well, at least for nuclear government formation talks, that's if the Flemish Nationalist leader, a staunch republican (not in the American sense, but as in: all for kicking the royals out of the palace and into the street) would not mess up protocol. Because, after an election, the Belgian king invites all party presidents and appoints the informator amongst the victors, who then has to find out what alliances are possible. (→ gleegleeglee)

But, the man had a good little talk with the king over coffee and cookies, met up with his co-victor of the Walloon Socialists and had some more coffee and cookies.
Nobody died.
(→ gleegleeglee)
They then decided together (it's a duumvirate!) to invent something like preformation talks: all political parties engage in a discussion that's padded by groundwork laying committees and all, on the 3 hot irons in Belgian politics (laws concerning complicated finances between federal Belgian state and the regional governments; Bey-Hash-Vey; revaluation of the Brussels region)  to come to a form of understanding before deciding on which minister gets what post. Meanwhile the old government continues, but of course with the new parliament.



What's this? Can we allow a government, that filed for political bankruptcy with the king, to continue to rule a country? Is Belgium some quaint Third World country?

I hear you, and it are all viable questions, but then you don't know Belgians. We have fries. We have beer*. We have chocolate. We are a resourceful people mostly interested in our own backyard, with a profound wish to simply lead our lives with too much interference by neighbours or governments. So they wanna have some more talks before starting with the actually elected government? *shrug* Why not? As long as I can continue to do a little moonlighting left and right while they're busy talking, all's well.

The only questions or remarks Belgians had was: Would having MORE talks on the 3 irons solve anything? Would all that blahblah finally lead to some results? Give it three days. Give it five. It'll all implode, you'll see, and then what? Civil war is just around the corner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Prepare your bunker/weapon/escape route!!!!!!!!!



Ah, but as it turned out, it was a good way of doing things. We've now had had 74 days of preformation talks, in an atmosphere so serene you can nearly hear angels sing. Well, okay, there's a hiccup now and then, but really, there's an amazingly small amount of press leaks, name calling, and general blundering about in public. It's so refreshing to have our Belgian tax-euro pay politicians to actually silently do their work, instead of producing an idiotic media circus. Apparently the only stick behind the door that will keep these ill tempered and foul- or loudmouthed politicians in check is the knowledge that if they do not succeed this time, the only future is:
having another election (bà-à-ààààd: not only: as if that's going to change things!, also: and risk complete fucktwat politicians to grab the steering wheel?) that will very certainly will have distrous results, ending in having to request Europe (or the UN, god forbid) for aid in creating a dialogue and fix this Kafkaesque country.


* and we keep the best brands for ourselves, trust me on this. Stella is just the shit we sell to tourists! At stellar prices too Muahahhaaa!



And so, I leave you yet again with a sample of our French vacation. And here you thought Lost was the shiznit. I bring you: The End is Nigh!

Apocalypse: this way!

 The apocalypse is available for man, woman and disabled, in several languages (English, French and German), and if so desired, an introduction is available in a specialized area to help you prepare.

 

Shtuff

So, while the Belgians all wait to hear who's going to be leading the informative round of the government's formation, I've been using my day of unemployment and the beautiful weather to finally get some taming done in the garden.
After having abandoned it for many months (saber priorities), it had turned into a jungle worthy of the African continent (except: no bananas!). I've been running around with the machete (well, pruning shears simply doesn't sound as adventurous), dodging extremely dangerous insects (giant woodwasps aren't really dangerous except to the sudden scare they can give you by suddenly zooming past), and working until crippled (luckily, since I'm no longer used to the hard garden work, I got a blister before the body craptastic had something to complain about).

Also, I got some mild sunburn. That'll teach me, hiding indoors for weeks on end.

So, now I'm going to rest by trying to get the Barynn Companion in enough shape so I can actually put my office in some order.

Question the media

It's always interesting to look up foreign news articles on Belgium, because they usually convey more about the foreign country/news service than Belgium. Sometimes they're also somewhat funny, and sometimes they are shockingly wrong. For instance, after the train crash in February, AP sent an article into the world which gave the name of our king as Baudouin. Two days later (17 Feb) they corrected it:

AP - In a Feb. 15 story about the collision of two Belgian trains, The Associated Press erroneously reported the name of the Belgian monarch who visited the crash scene. His correct name is King Albert, not King Baudouin.

Now good old king Baudouin has been dead since 1993. Sort of like saying Clinton is still the US president... I don't quite know if I should be troubled, annoyed or saddened by such things. Shouldn't reporters of reputable news agencies double-check their facts? Has that new culture where speed is more important than correctness, as we know it from the internet and tweethood, corrupted journalism through and through?

But anyways, without much further ado, some notes on foreign "insights" into the NVA's landslide win and the future of Belgium:

NY Times:

But it is likely to take months to negotiate a new coalition, raising the prospect that Belgium will be struggling to assemble its own government at precisely the time it is supposed to be steering Europe out of a deep crisis

I don't know where journalists first heard this, and why they keep perpetuating such overblown fears. Believing this, is completely ignoring the Lisbon Treaty, and presuming that the presidency of Europe has more power than it actually has. A country can certainly give accents to certain issues during its presidency, but let's not pretend that the presidency of the council is anything like heading the European Commission, or that Belgian politicians will actually have to do so much more than play host. And playing hosts we Belgians can do amidst whatever internal crisis. We've got fries, chocolate and beer, for chrissakes. What else do you need for a party?

In addition to Mr. de Wever’s party, which got nearly 30 percent of the vote, Flanders gave 12.5 percent of its vote to the far-right separatists of Vlaams Belang and about 4 percent to another populist party, meaning that nearly half of the Flemish electorate voted for separatists. Mr. de Wever’s success appeared to come at the expense of the Christian Democrats of the current prime minister and his Liberal allies.

I resent this half-assed number game with half-assed deduction. As I said in a previous post, a lot of the NVA votes came from the parties they mention, and hence were already voting far-right and separatist. It's more a restacking of vote in the right wing than a gain in right-wing voters.
The most important numbers are those of the Chamber, not the Senate . After all, the Chamber has more power than the Senate over the government and actually makes the laws. It's also probably why people give a vote for the senate quicker to the NVA (or Vlaams Belang) than for their vote for the Chamber.
And then you have to take in account that two cartels in the previous elections no longer exist (SP.a-Spirit and CD&V-NVA).

The numbers are:
Vlaams Belang: coming from 12% they lose 4,3% ending up on 7,7% (Senate: -6,6% ending up on 12,3%)

LDD: coming from 4% they lose 1,7% ending up on 2,3% (Senate: -2,2% ending up on 3,3%)
OpenVLD: coming from 11,8% they lose 3,4% ending up on 8,4% (Senate: -6,8 ending up on 13,3%)
Groen: coming from 4% they add 0,2% ending up on 4,2% (Senate:+0,4% ending up on 6,3%)



The SP.a-Spirit cartel dissolved without too much trace (mostly due to the election threshold): the SP.a back on its own loses 1,3% against its cartel position of 2007 ending up on 9% in the Chamber and a loss of 0,9% in the Senate brings them to 15,3%.

The CD&V-NVA cartel split, but last elections they had 18,5% together in the Chamber and 31,4% in the Senate. The math [CD&V now: 10,9% in Chamber, 16,4% in Senate and NVA now: 17,3% in Chamber, 31,7% in Senate] ends up with a big win for the former cartel, ending in 28,2% for the Chamber and 48,1% in the Senate.

If analysis of those numbers can teach us anything, it is that the unrest in the Flemish liberal democrats, between their own left and right wing, still exists. It's a problem which has been troubling the VLD from their reform in 1992 (they used to be PVV), and has peaked in recent years with party members leaving and starting their own parties (LDD for instance). As long as they cannot make a coherent whole, they will always have big chops of swing-voters they lose when they become too leftist or too rightist... And, it's mainly due to that big chop of voters that the NVA gets its monster score.

Few symbols of Belgian unity remain, other than the royal family, the cartoon character Tintin and Brussels itself. There is a national soccer team, but it did not qualify for the World Cup.

That's a pitiful statement. All symbols of Belgium unity still exist (flag, king, hymn, and I think Jacques Brel  is a better symbol of unity in Belgium than our beloved reporter comic who has turned in a money carousel for the heirs (and not for Belgium), and, with the risk of sounding like a snarky Flemish nationalist: who's known all through the world by his French name. We have our great artists, musicians and fashion designers, all them more interested in Belgium and the big wide world than in that little, economically developed but emotionally stinted Flanders... In sports there's Cleijsters and Henin, more balanced you cannot make your representation in sports, linguistically speaking! The only thing that should change is in fact the national soccer team, since they haven't had results in ages, and the only reason we have to have a national team is because eveybody just lurves soccer.
Bah, stupid sport.

Also, his name is Bart De Wever, not Bart de Wever. In Dutch Dutch all "de" in names are "de", in Flemish Dutch, "de" in a name written without capital means nobility. And nobility he ain't. It's a small detail, but don't let all this discourse on how the Flemish are pitted against the French-speaking lead you to believe that the Flemish love the Dutch more.


BBC world:

The result would be a significant loss for Premier Yves Leterme's coalition of Christian Democrats, Liberals and Socialists.

While strictly not untrue, I'd rather see "Christian Democrats and Liberals on Flemish side, and Liberals and Socialists on French side" or some notation that actually represents an important nuance. Nearly all Belgian parties are individual entities on either side of the language barrier; while of course, let's say, the Flemish and French socialists wouldn't have a lot of problems working together, their way of doing things, of thinking, the solutions they offer... can be quite different. One of the biggest differences exist between the Flemish Christen democrats (center right) and the French (center left). Chucking them all on one heap as Christen Democrats, without taking note of the language group, is rather flighty journalism.

Belgian governments are required to be made up of a bi-lingual coalition of at least four parties.

That's the first I hear about that, though seeing how in high school history classes we managed to cover WW1&2 three years in a row and never actually got to modern day Belgium, I could be mistaken. The only coalition that needs to be formed legally is between one French-speaking and one Dutch-speaking party, so bilingual, yes. But four parties? Strictly speaking, if there would be a French-speaking party with 50,5% of the French-speaking votes, and the same on the Flemish side, those two could form a legal federal government.
However, it is true that usually a wider coalition is looked for, mainly because if you want to make constitutional changes you need a 2/3 majority in parliament, and for most important constitutional reforms also a 1/2+1 or 2/3 majority in both language groups within the federal parliament. So, it makes sense to form a 4 party coalition to make sure the changes you want to make actually will pass parliament.


De Volkskrant:

Anderen zijn hoopvoller gestemd. Zij denken dat de Franstaligen onder druk van deze uitslag bereid zullen zijn tot een staatshervorming. 

Translated: Others are more hopeful. They think the French-speaking will be pressed by this result to the reform of the state.

This is a rehash of what a lot of Flemish parties have been saying for months: we need to force the French-speaking politicians to reform, because they don't want any. It's always no no no. Now they can do naught else!

Lies, I say, lies and confuzzelation, and the media is complicit in this scam. After the previous election, during the difficult formation of the coalition, it was decided, mainly by the CD&V-NVA cartel, that as a solution of the ongoing debacle, they were going to start with coming to some agreement on the split of BHV before starting talks on the reform of the state's structures. This is problematic because to propose that  the only solution to the BHV problem is the split of the electoral district (in which the French-speaking stand to lose) is looking for difficulties. However, all other solutions would demand deeper state reform (expansions of Brussels, or making federal elections federal by dissolving the language barrier for those elections and of course the parity rule that rebalances the Walloon and Flemish vote for the Chamber), which you've just excluded from the table. That, I do not call negotiating.
Because the Walloons stand to lose by a simple split of BHV, they are not motivated to cooperate. However, this is something different than not wanting a state reform. They wanted rather a state reform that included (if it really has to, *sigh*) than a solution for BHV. They windicated often enough they would compromise on their wants and give up their stance on BHV, if for instance an expansions of Brussels could be put on the agenda. It's only logical the French-speaking parties would not formally commit to a split of BHV under those circumstances.

Hence my belief that the previous winners did not truly want to negotiate, and seeing how Bart De Wever (NVA) changed his tone towards the Walloons as soon as it became obvious that a win was a serious option in this election (also: this time, no Flemish lion flags in the NVA victory party yesterday evening!), I'm assuming he's not only showing good will, but also the will to compromise and come to a good and long-term solution for all Belgian levels. Let's just see what the next days bring...

The people have spoken

From the first tentative results yesterday afternoon it was clear that the Flemish Nationalists, NVA, would do at least as well as recent polls suggested. At the end of the day, they did better.

Looking at where they got their votes (a clear view on shifts in voting behavior is only one of the good points of a representative (and obligatory) voting system as it exists in Belgium) it's not as disastrous as it sounds. The result is mainly a restacking of the right, seeing as two big "losers" are the Christian Democrats, CD&V (who had grown the last couple of years through an alliance with the NVA that turned out unworkable in the end, and now the nail in their coffin), and Vlaams Belang, Flemish Nationalists and xenophobe party. I'm heartened to see that the free-fall the left was in the last couple of years has halted. That was one of my biggest fears, not to wake up in a Belgium where Bart De Wever was the biggest man, but where the socialists and greens shrunk ever more.

I'm annoyed that on the Flemish news site they only give results of Flanders, you even have to dig for articles on Brussels or Wallonia. It were federal elections, and as a Belgian me I'd like my tax-euro subsidized news giving me a view on how Belgium, and not only Flanders, will be today. In Wallonia it was rapidly clear that the Walloon socialists were recuperating nicely from the punches they got in the last couple of elections, as polls had suggested.

As one French-speaking twitterer said yesterday:

Bart De Wever doesn't acknowledge the existence of the Belgian king⁽¹⁾, and the king doesn't acknowledge the existence of Bart De Wever⁽²⁾: that's Belgian surrealism.

Today will be a very interesting day. Obviously, it's De Wever's turn, but how will the king handle it? Will De Wever, with his monster score, accept that he'll have to work with the Walloon socialists?The CD&V hope they'll be working together again with NVA, but then De Wever will be working with the party that screwed everything up; the only big party not involved in the debacle of the last three years are the Flemish socialists. But that's like screwing over the rightist swing-voters that delivered his monster score. Ah, politics, definitely more thrilling than football.


⁽¹⁾ he's fervently republican
⁽²⁾ the king left him out of talks before, but what else can you do with someone who doesn't acknowledge your existence?

Marcus knows best

Some thoughts on boycotts for Gaza

What annoys me is that boycotting was so much easier in the Apartheid days, perhaps because it had an easy name. Perhaps we need some marketing dudes to get their asses on this.

Now, recently there has been a spade of cultural boycotts (since boycotting Israeli product most likely will only add to the suffering of those few Palestinians who still have the permit to work outside their "borders" ^(*), naming a few:

• Israelis won't be reading new Iain Banks material in Hebrew: but wouldn't taking steps to actually making sure no titles in whatever language are sold in Israel be more productive as boycott? Won't they just buy English? Unless of course he's planning another Feersum Endjinn
• Flocks of artists have canceled concerts in Israel, amongst others, Gorillaz (wtf? is this the man that tried to get music fans' conscience back on tracks during the acceptance of Gorillaz's first MTV award in 2001?) and and The Pixies (whose ethics apparently need a bit of blood before action is called for).

Then there is Elvis Costello, who was well ahead the game when he canceled his dates.

All in all, who am I to criticise? Every good deed done is one good deed done. All you can do in the crazy muppet show the world is, is stand your own ground, friendly and without arrogance, understanding full well that a man is worth as much as his deeds ⁽²⁾.


Belgian elections
Don't do it if it's not fitting, don't say it if it isn't true. Always keep your own purpose and resolution free from compulsion and necessity. Consider the true nature of everything you see and hear, dissect it in cause, matter, meaning and intent, and ponder upon its expiration date. ⁽³⁾⁽⁴⁾

So, Sunday is the big day. I've looked at party statements, and am saddened by the absence of real important stuff. Comparing statements of (verbal) communications is sometimes clearer: CD&V (Flemish Christian democrats, never get my vote FYI) talk about keeping retirement pay manageable, SPa (Flemish socialists) talk about having worthwhile retirement pay. It's the little stuff like that that makes the difference.

But after studying all the talking heads, I must conclude that I'll stick with the socialists this time, even if I'm greatly vexed that they're more concerned about making life a breeze for mums and children (hello baby-boom? Is that really what we need? Again? Isn't that exactly the cause of the current retirement pay problem?) instead of real structural changes. Like most parties--left, center or right--they have become terribly complacent. I agree with Peter Singer on this: the left hasn't really evolved since the 19th century, unlike then ideas of the right. Perhaps I should buy a box full of copies of his on a Darwinian Left and send them to lefty parties for free. It will be too late for this election, but it is never too late to change the world.


Wildheit @ Psychoshop
So the site is somewhattish back on its feet a bit, and this time I've made sure the SQL database gets automatically backed up. Murphy proof! Or so I hope.

There was this stuff I wanted to add to the site but I got completely lost in my terribly well-organised bookmarks ==> procrastination of the worst kind!

One cool design aid link: Online Color Scheme Designer

But all that getting lost in digiland made me think of what some smart ancient dude⁽¹⁾ once said (or hath sayeth or something):

Be not deceived; for thou shalt never live to read thy moral commentaries, nor the acts of the famous Romans and Grecians; nor those excerpts from several books; all which thou hadst provided and laid up for thyself against thine old age. Hasten therefore to an end, and giving over all vain hopes, help thyself in time if thou carest for thyself, as thou oughtest to do.
~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book III.14

So there, Marcus knows best, and I'm off to continuing some work. It will be hard, because as my recent false starts with the new books I bought prove: Cow Watcher is working on SF, so I can't read SF. So I guess I better find something fantasy amongst my projects that needs working on in the mean time...


^(*) bracketed because the Israelis don't seem to grasp the definition of "border": when its between them and the Palestinians its their border, if its between the Palestinians and the world it is their border (and not the Palestinians). That's like agreeing to the border between Belgium and France, but saying Belgium has a right to intervene on France's border with Spain, because it's our border too. Plus: agreeing on a border is agreeing to stop changing it.
⁽¹⁾ intentional use of ignoramus phrasing
⁽²⁾ a rephrasing of: Public shows and solemnities with much pomp and vanity, stage plays, flocks and herds; conflicts and con tentions: a bone thrown to a company of hungry curs; a bait for greedy fishes; the painfulness, and continual burden-bearing of wretched ants, the running to and fro of terrified mice: little puppets drawn up and down with wires and nerves: these be the objects of the world. among all these thou must stand steadfast, meekly affected, and free from all manner of indignation; with this right ratiocination and apprehension; that as the worth is of those things which a man doth affect, so is in very deed every man's worth more or less ~Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book VII.3
⁽³⁾ a rephrasing of: If it be not fitting, do it not. If it be not true, speak it not. Ever maintain thine own purpose and resolution free from all compulsion and necessity. ~Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book XII.13
⁽⁴⁾ a rephrasing of: Of everything that presents itself unto thee, to consider what the true nature of it is, and to unfold it, as it were, by dividing it into that which is formal : that which is material: the true use or end of it, and the just time that it is appointed to last. ~Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book XII.14

Shtuff

Championships:
did better in the poules than I expected. It is becoming a habit to scare women who are way better than me, physically and tactically, and then struggle against those I should be able to turn into minced meat with my eyes closed. And then I did it again in the elimination, which is stupid, because I was really well placed after that poule and had a decent chance of getting through 2 rounds. Some things you learn in training, and some you learn on tournaments. I've got a pretty good idea where I went wrong, so I won't be doing those things again next Sunday, on yet another tournament. At least, I will try. Because you can rationalize all you want after, reason don't help much when you're facing your opponent. So I learned great stuff and managed to keep my body in working order, which is a victory in itself.

I did some more work on Tiger on Saturday, between the bouts of the hubby's epee fencing, so also yay.

And Belgium still exists, though the air of cabaret and circus remains strong. We'll see what the week brings: more clowns, some good old-fashioned pillories, or off with their heads?

Split or Bust: the circus continues

Something more that you need to know about BHV:

It is only a problem insofar that the political parties want a negotiated solution. The Flemish parties can put the split on the agenda of the Chamber, and except when Brussels slows the process down (the last possible delay of a vote in the Chamber), the split gets voted and then the Flemish win. Because the whole keeping things 50-50 between a 60-40 population seems to break down at that point. More Flemish in the Chamber, they vote, and it's F: 1 - W: 0

Now, what bugs me is that the keeping of the old electoral districts in the Brussels-Brabant area did not come into existence without the say-so of Flemish parties themselves. But they're suddenly all defending the right of a couple of idiots living in Walloon-Brabant because land is cheap there and actually don't give a rats ass that they can't vote on Flemish parties. But we mustn't say this. Flemish rights are violated, so let's use our predominance in the Chamber to make it happen! The way Flemish politicians are posturing, it's like boys boasting before a fight. Of course those Frenchies don't wanna see that happen, hey, now, do they? Hmm? Hmm?

Speaking as a Flemish person, seeing as how the Walloons have already scored points in Europe on the protection of minorities (some grounded, some a bit far-fetched), I don't think it's something to gloat about. They are a minority.

Hence, for many years all parties have ignored deadline after deadline in the negotiations on BHV. Deadlines, up until now, never really mattered. But the Open VLD (Flemish liberals) have a new leader, a young guy burning to prove his worth, so at the passing of the latest deadline he pronounced to have lost their confidence in the current government, which you may read as: we're tired of the clowns making up our majority. So that's why premier Leterme had to hand his resignation. And he was smiling upon returning from the king. Remind me to ask my saber trainer what they put in the coffee at the palace (so yes: governmental crisis again, equals missing one saber trainer, again. Stupid frigging politicians, don't they know the Belgium Fencing Championships for seniors is THIS weekend?)

Now, all parties agree this tragicomedy of a country needs a serious reform. BHV was chosen as the easiest of The Insurmountable Problems to solve, sort of a toe in the water. Alas, nobody really agrees on where the reform should stop, and the rub begins with nobody agreeing on what problem should be addressed first. As the debacle has proven: not flipping Bay-Hash-Vey!

I say: we've come to a point where sadly it would not make much difference whether we have democratic elections, have the king chose whomever he wishes amongst the politicians to have as ministers, or have a lottery amongst all citizens to pick a few who get to govern for a few years. It just can't get any worst. Governing on the federal level has been one long terrible show of electoral posturing the last few years, and politicians, no matter their poker faces, are really bad actors.

Comical note of the day: after Open VLD felled the government, the French-speaking parties vouched that they were still willing to work on a negotiated solution. Then Open VLD announced they too were still willing to negotiate, on some terms.

WTF? How the hell can you defend a twist like that if it's not solely political posturing? I want a lottery, and I want it now.

Split or Bust!

Yay! Political crisis in Belgium! Again!

A few months ago I would have whooped at the mention of the government (especially the conservative Christian Democrats) handing their resignation to the king, not to mention it's the same guy over and over (well, poor Leterme's gonna be slurping antidepressants for some years I think). But see, most of the Belgians are somewhat stunned by this strange race of people that come and tells us what the important political issues are and then start fighting about it until the government implodes. Again. I'd rather pay to watch WWE on cable. Because, when it comes to the crunch, you have these two items in the list of recent news: "The King considers [the government's resignation]", and "1.5 million Belgians in poverty" (and there are about 10 million of us). Well, that sort of eats up all my glee-energy. Because really, this political war that is raging in Belgium is just that, and the rest of us have other frigging problems.

But no, the media will blow their trumpets and make sure you hear it, trust me, throughout Europe the siren song will be sung:

There's a war going on and it's the end of Belgium!

Now this war rages between the Walloon part (French-speaking Belgians (FS)) and Flemish part (Dutch-speaking (DS)). Point of contestation is a reform in electoral districts, the logical consequence of a series of modernizations of the state that turned Belgium into this weird haywire democracy with complex layers of government. We have the federal state, spread over three Communities (French-, Dutch- and German-speaking), and three independent Regions (Wallonia, Flanders, Brussels), which gives us six parliaments (Federal, Flemish, Walloon, Brussels, French and German), and then there are still the local and provincial councils (luckily we don't get a vote on the provincial level, Mein Gott!)

N.B.: See! It is evidence itself that we deliver Europe its first president. We're all about simplifying government! :-]

This democratic haystack means we have to vote for local government (city councils), regional government (Flemish parliament) and federal government, leaving European elections out of consideration for now. All these elections are a logistical nightmare for a small country like Belgium. More modernization was needed. We're a country of logic and reason after all [Excuse me, we are? Thought that was France, or maybe England. We're fries and beer, no?]. Laws were adapted, electoral district borders were redrawn to coincide with provincial, except in 3 cases: Walloon Brabant (FS), Flemish Brabant (DS), and Brussels-with-an-expansion, better known as BHV [or B-H-V; pronounced (but go easy in the diphthong) by Flemish as Bay-Hash-Vey (Oy Vey!), and by Walloon as Bay-Ash-Vey]

Now Bay-Hash-Vey is one of the many Insurmountable Problems Belgium has, and most of The Insurmountable Problems find their origin in a language border being painted from east to west over the Belgian territory. This happened in the time when women burn their bras and students were killed for peace. Flemish students fight for the right to have education in their own language, which is okay I guess. It lead to the FS university elite being kicked out of the Catholic University of Leuven (Louvain in French), and they built a new one in Louvain-La-Neuve. See, we're very creative people, us.

The language border leads to laws concerning democratic rule, since there are less Walloons than Flemish people , and some sort of correction has to be enforced in federal elections else you end up with a Walloon minority. That's how bilingualism works. You can't have one FS or DS politician too many, even if they are perfectly bilingual. Plus, we Flemish are very good at playing the underdogs because that's what we were for a long time and now we have this habit and pretend we only act this way because we still have some quota left from the past.The French owe us, dude.

Everything got split in Belgium, and divided, and every euro going to Wallonia has to have its counterpart going to Flanders. Tiresome, I hear you think, but you haven't got the faintest! We have French political parties. Dutch political parties. And only in the true bilingual part of Belgium it's possible to vote for French or Dutch parties "as you wish": Brussels.

With expansion of the Brussels district, this means that people from a small part of constitutional Flanders (Halle, Vilvoorde) can vote for French parties and that's not fair for the two districts of Brabant, but certainly to the Walloon part because the Flemish living there can not vote for Flemish parties. Hence, the Constitutional Court decided BHV had to be solved. DS parties, lead by the Flemish nationalists, read this persistently as: has to be split. FS parties don't like this idea of splitting without getting something in return (like for instance an expansion of Brussels to include the problematic municipalities "with facilities" surrounding it).

The!Au!dacity! We only ask for LAW being applied. Plus, expanding Brussels is a ridiculous idea: it would create a corridor from FS territories direct to the heart of Brussels, which still suffers from more than a century of Frenchification. You don't want to make it any easier for those Frenchies to take over your capital, right? I can see them already, those damned frogs, lining up with their hastily prepared suitcases, ready to march right in!

You are entitled to go "Huh?" right now; it is what most Belgians feel after a decade of debate and political arm wrestling and deadlines and compromising and as long as the politicians can keep the show up none of us will start wondering whether paying that legion of idiots (six parliaments, I tell you!) is really the best way to spend our tax-euros. 1.5 million Belgians in poverty anyone?

Now, adding a little note about that number of elections: they have different intervals so whenever we vote federal there are people who leave the seat they were elected to in a regional election to "move up ". It is an annoyance. A crying shame according to many parties, who when it is their turn, do more of the same. Except for the Flemish Socialists who manage to not even give their guy with the most votes (and the best track record ever, and universally named as the most competent politician in Belgian history ever) a seat in *any* of the governments. Because the party knows best. Besides, if the other parties can shoot themselves in the foot and gain votes, surely socialists can do better! Another reason to not really applaud the Belgian crisis: for the first time in my life I wouldn't know who to vote for and that's a big problem in a multiparty system.

Back to BHV: my main concern is not about language borders or that it leads to annoyingly boring debates about them versus us. But the bad government it brings on instead of leading to actually improving politics. A lost chance for politicians to justify the need for our myriad of governmental levels, by making the difference clear: you have your people for local government, regional government and federal government. Not that there can never be any linkage between them, but seriously, the distance from Belgium to Flanders should be as big as to let's say Antwerp. It means that some parties won't exist on all levels (which is already the case), and that parties are forced to think about what they are going to do when getting to the federal level, instead of saying whatever swings the vote. Like: BHV will be split! Tomorrow! Trust us!

The solution to BHV is quite simple, though it does not translate to the endless promises Flemish politicians made in the past about The Split: let Belgians vote for any politician, no matter what side of the language border they come from, in federal elections. (N.B.: in European elections, a level even higher up, language is even less important). This also sounds to me like the best way to ensure the most competent people get into the federal government, and it will force parties to take the different levels serious. The federal level IS bilingual. We have griped in the past about our Flemish federal ministers being bilingual and their Walloon colleagues not, and the FS are studying hard to address our sensitivities. There's no better way to motivate the FS politicians to learn Flemish than making it important to be understood by voters. Federal level, bilingual, anybody's vote.

If politicians can't make such a divide between levels clear and workable, I don't see a reason to keep it all.

WHOA! Loaded remark here in Flanders! But no, I won't trade my capital Brussels with Antwerp (Flemish nationalists sport the idea of " Belgium bust" and separation): if this circus goes on I'd prefer to revert to 1830 and be forced to fill out my taxes in French, over reverting to some mythical Flanders of 1302. Not simply because I'm contraire like that but because anybody not from the provinces of East- and West-Flanders understands those truly and historically Flemish dialects.

Explanation of 1302: The Battle of the Golden Spurs is the national holiday of the Flemish community, because that's when the poor (but not financially so) people of Flanders won against the king of France! With pitchforks and cunning passwords, as the persistent folklore goes: when a francophone tries to say "Schild en vriend" (shield and friend) he'll betray himself easily ("skilt en frint"). Sort of like the TH in English; you get it with your mother's milk or never. Now, the importance of 1302 in the war of the languages in Belgium is highly overrated: the idea that it was French-speaking against Dutch-speaking is a myth invented by Flemish nationalist historians of the past, and novelists. And who says literature ain't important?

In reality, large parts of modern Flanders were the county of Namen and the duchy of Brabant back then, and those two fought on the side of the Frenchies. While dialects from Flanders, Brabant and Namen all had commonalities that are still reflected in the modern day dialects (French as well as Dutch-speaking dialects!), it wasn't a real language issue, but, as it usually is, one of economics, and helping to drown your neighbor to take over his market share.

Put like that, if you look from a distance at my beloved country and look really well, you'll see we're not so different from the Balkans. Our lands are just more fertile and our neighbors bigger and scarier.
And we have fries and beer.

Oy vey, enough already about this idiocy. I leave you with the modern day Jacques Brel, the incomprehensible-to-Dutch-speakers Flemish dude who sings in Flemish, French (knighted by the French Order!), English and anything in between... The universally adored Belgian artist, Arno, who said it best with: Nous sommes quand même tous des Européens!

Loose ends

Last week and next week most of my time will be devoted to fencing; this weekend I followed a course to become juge, and I passed the theoretical exam. And next week is the annual general assembly of the club and I have to get the financial report in order.

Because of the judge course I completely missed the fabulous new evidence that the biggest problems in Belgium are all invented or created by the government:
The government decided on holding a memorial in Brussels where almost none of the survivors or family members came. Images show the Bozar hall with hundreds of empty seats. This happened because:
- Buizingen/Halle is one of those "difficult" communities in the belt around Brussels. You must speak Dutch over there, so according to the cabinet of Internal Affairs it was impossible to hold a bilingual service there (a lot of French speaking victims) without exploding the language issues between the Flemish and Walloon. Hence, Brussels. Belgians, from both sides of the language barrier, blinked in mute consternation.
- another reason for holding it in Brussels was that the cabinet interpreted the protocol concerning a-religousness very strict. The first plan was to hold the service in the church of Buizingen. The Catholic Church, who has no problem with inviting other religions to join in such services of national import, kindly declined when the cabinet demanded that there would be no praying whatsoever of any kind during the service. Like all Belgians, I'm pretty proud of our strict divide between church and state, but like most Belgians, again: blinking in mute consternation.
- about 700 tickets were sent to family and survivors, and they were invited to come to Brussels by train. A train driver died in the crash; the NMBS (the national train company) got only 25 invites for execs and employees combined. Talk about a cock-up.
- most of the victims found the memorial way too soon: the debate on how and why the security of the train network still isn't up to specs after the last great train disaster in Belgium is still raging, there are still many unanswered questions. I should mention that only last week a train performed an emergency stop after missing a red light: there is a shortage of personnel, for years now, meaning extremely stressed drivers, not enough resting time between trains/journeys, and a witch hunt on tardy trains only adding to the stress of the drivers.

Totally unrelated: time for another query.