no war statue

“Oh, What’ll You Do Now?”

On Action in the Face of Destruction "I’m a-goin’ back out ’fore the rain starts a-fallin’" -Bob Dylan, A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (1963) Is…

Long Live All Who Can’t Be Fooled

A poem by HK & The Saltimbanks This is my first post in a couple of weeks. I intend on blogging more in the nearby…

Dutch Debate is Dead

Debate Remains Dead. And They've Killed It. Listen to this article A popular song about the Covid restrictions was ‘We’ve Lost Dancing’ in 2021. In…

hand

All Talk, No Action

Journalism Since the Great Financial Crisis In early 2009 I attended a memorable panel discussion at Columbia University’s Journalism School in New York. A handful…

Dutch Media’s Unforced Errors

Columbia

The Deafening Silence of Columbia Journalism School

journalism Columbia University

Journalism, Truth and Time

Skateboarder in New York City. Photo by Maarten Slot.

The Modern Hero

Last week a Dutch biography of Theo van Gogh (1957-2004) was published, and even after seven years of work his biographer said in a television…

Old Wild Horses

All wisdom found outside the rational mind has consistently received a bad rap, particularly during the last fifty to one hundred years. Much attention was…

Dutch Media’s Unforced Errors

Flower

New Words

Guggenheim

De ‘hamsterwiel’-jaren

Waar ging het mis? Zal het straks mis gaan, is het al mis gegaan, of allebei? Voormalig econoom en oud-werknemer van Lehman Brothers Michael Krieger,…

From Ponzi to Ponzi

I met Bernie Madoff at a party in Florida. It was just a year or so before December 2008, when he got arrested and began…

Old Wild Horses

All wisdom found outside the rational mind has consistently received a bad rap, particularly during the last fifty to one hundred years. Much attention was…

bicycles

It’s Human Nature?

Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of…

no war statue

“Oh, What’ll You Do Now?”

Ruler

The Little Man

In the summer of 1945 psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) wrote a riveting essay entitled Listen, Little Man! – addressing all the forms of the 'Little…

huntington

‘Davos Men’ and ‘Dead Souls’: 20 Years Later

Dead Souls: The Denationalization of the American Elite was an essay published twenty years ago by Samuel P. Huntington (1927-2008), a prominent political scientist who…

Skateboarder in New York City. Photo by Maarten Slot.

The Modern Hero

books

Heroic Historians

Louvre

Computer Still Says No

Humor is often prophetic. The sketch from Little Britain –‘Computer says No’– is exactly twenty years old. An unfriendly, cold-hearted hospital receptionist conveniently suspends all…

Skateboarder in New York City. Photo by Maarten Slot.

The Modern Hero

Last week a Dutch biography of Theo van Gogh (1957-2004) was published, and even after seven years of work his biographer said in a television…

old gate in Bruges

The Triviality Trap

burning match

The End of Short-Term Thinking

bricks

When the Worst Won

chestnut

Building the Non-Lie