Peaktalk Archives
Last Week on The Gazette
There was a lot of comment on my post which dealt with the overreaction by police at both Phoenix and Vancouver airports which resulted in two unfortunate deaths. Excerpt:
It occurs to me that our society's appetite for security and control has given birth to a rapidly growing industry - consisting of both public and private institutions - that is increasingly incompetent in dealing with alleged breaches of security. Giant lapses in security occur without any effective response, while innocent passengers run the risk of being violently subdued in situations where other tools of conflict resolution would undoubtedly have done the trick.Read the whole thing, and the various comments, here.
And yes, China is firmly back on the agenda. The red carpet treatment that the Dalai Lama got at the White House last week deserves applause.
This Week on The Gazette
As most of you are aware by now, I post my political thoughts on The Gazette, some weeks more than others. This week I touched on The Bush Speech, Public Funds for Religious Schools and Jane Wyman's death.
Co-Authoring ...
I have signed on as a contributing author on The Van Der Galien Gazette where I will post some of my thoughts from time to time. My first piece, Diana and the Culture of Death, is up. Enjoy.
A Visit Home, A Look at its Politics
Judging from the many e-mails that I still get - despite the very low output on this site - there is still a lot of interest in Dutch affairs. The topic has disappeared from the headlines although there are some notable exceptions; take a look at this fairly spectacular item for instance.
In any case, I have just returned from the annual break back in the lowlands - photo here - and it seems that political sentiments have calmed down a bit, although deep uncertainty and confusion lurk beyond the surface. So, by summarizing the past five years in a long piece below, I have tried to reach some sort of interim conclusion from which we can look ahead. The core of the argument is that the confusion has created a 'volatile political market' where mainstream parties are ceding territory and new outfits on both the left and right are able to get traction, adding to the uncertainty.
Articles Updated
I have now added the six articles I have written to date for Pajamas Media in the articles section. The plan of course is to have a home for future pieces here too.
Peaktalk 2.0 is here
So, there we are, as promised a fully redesigned and revamped site. Again what you see is the result of the excellent work of Stacy at Sekimori who is able to translate some of my conceptual notes into a pretty compelling website. At least that is what I think. In particular I am pleased to have one of my own photos to represent 'the peak', it is the spectacular panorama from the aptly named Keys View in Joshua Tree National Park, looking west into Southern California's Coachella Valley.
There were many reasons to refresh the site, the most important one being that I was more than a bit tired of the old format, but also of the traditional approach to the blog. So the changes will not be just in the way it looks, but in the way it reads too. The days of regular daily updates are gone forever, although if the news so requires I may return to that.
Now, I will focus on what I like to do best and that is infrequent but longer posts. That was the part I always enjoyed doing most and which in turn often got the most feedback from readers and other sites. So, more column-style posts, and film or book reviews. Or better still: interviews. And rather than talk to the converted in order to preach to the converted, hopefully some real dialogue. The kick off for that will be on Monday when I will interview someone who has written a highly critical book on western involvement in Iraq.
Welcome back, Peaktalk is open for business again.
