April 8, 2018

‘We want more women in municipal councils’, say Dutch voters, but political parties disagree

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 2:40 pm

billboard-branko-collinPreferential voting in last month’s municipal elections in the Netherlands has caused a drastic increase of female representatives, newspaper Trouw reported two weeks ago.

The campaign Stem op een Vrouw (vote for a woman) encouraged citizens to vote tactically by voting for a woman the polls suggested would just miss out on being elected. The result was an increase of 20% women in the Dutch municipal councils.

Municipal councils in the Netherlands are elected once every four years. A council sets the policy for its municipality and supervises the municipality’s executive board. A party receives its portion of the available seats based on the percentage of votes they win. The council seats are distributed among the candidates that make up the top of the party list, but if a lower ranked candidate gets a lot of votes, they bump the lowest candidate of the primary selection from her or, as the case may be, his seat.

In the previous four years, a record-breaking 28% of council members were women, but this year the new record was set at 34%. Citizens gave women a preferential vote across all party lines, although the effect was most noticeable for candidates of D66 (Democrats), Groen Links (Greens) and SP (Socialists).

Most resistant to the idea of female council members turned out to be the political parties and the candidates themselves. In 334 of the 335 municipalities, men dominated the party list, NOS reported in March. In the one town where there was an equal amount of male and female candidates, Heemstede, the male party leaders still outnumbered the female party leaders 2:1.

Both PvdA (Labour) and SP had their candidates sign a waiver, stating they would give up their seat if they got in on preferential votes. Several female Socialists gave up their council seats. The waiver has no legal force according to John Bijl of the Perikles institute: “You swear loyalty to the law and the constitution, not to your political party.” In Woerden, local party Inwonersbelangen (Citizens’ Interests) threw Lia Arentshorst out of the party after she refused to give up her seat.

The campaign Vote for a Woman was founded by Devika Partiman after a campaign with the same name from the 1990s in Surinam. The campaign also ran during the previous parliamentary elections, where the effect was more subdued, presumably due to the fact that the representation of women in parliament has historically been greater already.

Tags: , , , , ,

April 3, 2018

Fifteen minutes of mayoral fame in Stadskanaal

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 12:02 pm

On March 29, in the town of Stadskanaal, Groningen, Gert-Jan Boels, a former councillor of the local government became the mayor for all of 15 minutes, with the bling like in the picture and a gavel. He may have even broken the record for the shortest term in office, but that hasn’t been verified.

When the local government installed the new council, it didn’t have a mayor. Mayors are not elected in the Netherlands (there’s a lot of discussion on that front nowadays), they are appointed. Without a mayor, the new councillors couldn’t be appointed. Amusingly enough, the law doesn’t have a provision in case this happens.

After a discussion with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the city appointed former councillor Boels as acting mayor for 15 minutes, the time it took to appoint Goedhart Borgesius, the longest serving councillor, as mayor.

Boels told the press it was “15 lovely minutes”.

(Link: binnenlandsbestuur.nl, Photo of the former mayor of Haarlem and former mayor of Bloemendaal, Bernt Schneiders)

Tags: , ,

March 28, 2018

Friesland home to world’s oldest working planetarium

Filed under: General,History by Orangemaster @ 7:14 pm

250px-Franeker,_Planetarium

Since the BBC has decided to talk about it, and many people have never heard of it, let’s tell you about the Royal Eise Eisinga Planetarium, the world’s oldest working planetarium or orrery, located in Franeker, Friesland.

Built from 1774 to 1781 by Eise Eisinga, it is a national monument, a “Baroque theatre for stargazers, crowning the living room of a modest wool comber who lived shortly after the Dutch Golden Age and an unfathomable undertaking considering Eisinga quit school aged 12”. Not only did the project take seven years to complete, but it nearly bankrupt him as well.

The amateur astronomer captured the universe in his living room, and the science behind it is still precise today. It is a working model of the solar system accurate for the time it was made, although Uranus, Neptune and Pluto (today a dwarf planet) are missing, as they hadn’t been discovered back then.

The film below is in Frisian and some commentary is in Dutch. You can see the old and new parts of the planetarium, as they eventually expanded having bought up neighbouring houses.

(Link: bbc.com, Photo of Royal Eise Eisinga Planetarium by Bouwe Brouwer, some rights reserved)

Tags: , ,

March 22, 2018

British blue passport to be made by Franco-Dutch company

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 11:33 am

Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto has won the tender to produce Britain’s post-Brexit blue passports, which has upset Brexiteers. Swapping the EU’s burgundy passport (shown here) for the old blue version is seen by them as a symbol of Britain’s regained independence.

The tender to produce the passport was put out across the EU under single market rules, and Gemalto undercut rival bids by around £50 million (€57 million). Former British cabinet minister Priti Patel said “Putting the job in the hands of the French is simply astonishing. It is a national humiliation.” And she’s also quite wrong to say ‘French’ as Gemalto is Franco-Dutch and headquartered in Amsterdam.

Apparently the Dutch part is not as humiliating to Brexiteers.

(Link: msn.com)

Tags: , ,

March 20, 2018

Dutchman fined for selling voting pass

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 8:20 pm

vote-counting-rnw

On 21 March, the country is holding municipal elections, and residents who are eligible to vote will have received their personalised voting pass by mail.

Some 44-year-old guy from Waalwijk wanting to make a few euro tried to sell his voting passes on Dutch bidding site Marktplaats. And it’s a two for one because in these elections, we’re also voting in a referendum on the Intelligence and Security Services Act 2017 (aka ‘Sleepwet’ in Dutch).

The Public Prosecution Service got wind of the sale and the man was fined 250 euro. The man was pretty relaxed about it, saying “I never vote, so I thought I could make someone happy with my passes”, which is odd since the person who would use them would have to prove their identity and that seems a bit much.

The Mayor of Waalwijk said he wanted the Public Prosecution Service to investigate why this happened (why did Marktplaats go along with this, I wonder) and our guy answered unfazed that he wasn’t afraid of the mayor’s threats.

(Link: omroepbrabant.nl, Photo by Photo RNW.org, some rights reserved)

Tags: , ,

March 19, 2018

Vote for the best ugly place in North Holland

Filed under: Architecture,General by Orangemaster @ 10:37 pm

Screen Shot 2018-03-19 at 22.31.51

Until Friday 23 March at 4pm CET, people can vote for the best ugly place in the province of North Holland (see link below). Even if you don’t understand Dutch, the 25 videos with all the candidates speak for themselves.

Watch and see places ranging from Beverwijk to Den Helder, Zandvoort to IJmuiden, and many more. There’s ugly stuff from the 1970s, 1980s and other decades that probably should never have been built or were poorly built and badly updated or are just plain weird and stick out.

All these urban planning gaffes are super obvious in a country that’s as flat as the Netherlands. And this was only done in one province!

(Link: nhnieuws.nl, image from nhnieuws’ Facebook page)

Tags: , , , , , ,

March 8, 2018

Floating hotel for Dutch theme park in Japan

Filed under: Design,General by Orangemaster @ 10:02 am

photo_l

Huis ten Bosch (Hausu Ten Bosu) is a theme park near Nagasaki, Japan that is apparently more than three times the size of Tokyo Disneyland and still bigger than Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea combined. Its theme is The Netherlands – all of it – and many of the famous buildings of the Netherlands have 1:1 replicas.

The Dutch-themed attraction park will be launching a floating capsule that can accommodate two or three people, with its the floor designed as an accommodation cabin and the second floor as an observation dome. The service is due to start this summer. The company plans to have a ship tow the hotel between the theme park and a nearby island.

And yes, it’s giving me a strong James Bond vibe, if you remember the final scene of The Spy Who Loved Me and the floating rescue pod that just happens to have Dom Pérignon 1952 champagne on ice.

(Link and photo: english.kyodonews.net)

Tags: ,

March 5, 2018

Sexist toys for boys pulled from Dutch supermarkets

Filed under: General,Sports by Orangemaster @ 4:13 pm

Screen Shot 2018-03-05 at 15.52.06

A football party pack marketed to boys aged 8-13 is being pulled from the shelves of the Albert Heijn supermarket chain for being sexist and glorifying stereotypically bad behaviour. Sure, a party pack with football-related items sounds almost acceptable except that this one automatically excludes girls form the get-go, making it not only sexist but also implying girls don’t play football, which they do en masse. What an odd situation, especially knowing Dutch women win at the highest levels of football. Maybe they should market this party pack to girls instead, albeit without belittling others in the process.

But this game gets worse, fast. They are cards in the game with multiple answer questions like “If a girl you don’t like asks you out, what do you do?” One of the answers is “I laugh at her”. Another question is “what is something you don’t want to see?”. One of the answers is “crying girls”. There’s another card about what to do at the beach that suggests “looking at girls” as an answer. Aren’t boys usually playing in the water or kicking a ball on the beach at that age?

This is a country where companies don’t check what they aim at children and a colouring book with an image of Hitler making a Nazi salute and wearing a Swastika armband and toys for boys to use to assault women (not girls, women).

(Link and screenshot: nltimes.nl)

Tags: , , , , ,

March 3, 2018

Amsterdam turns into picturesque skating rink

Filed under: General,Sports by Orangemaster @ 10:41 am

20180302-ijspret-bco-122

As of Thursday, people started skating on a few selected stretches of canals in Amsterdam, mainly the Prinsengracht. Yes, there’s been skating of all kinds happening in the north of the country as it is somewhat colder, but when skate fever hits Amsterdam, it’s a big deal worldwide. The sheer amount of spectators on the canal bridges means we’re all on someone’s holiday pictures and social media.

20180302-ijspret

While co-blogger Branko was taking pictures, I cleared my schedule on Friday and went skating. I’ve own a pair of custom Riedell ice skates since I was girl in Canada and they are at my door with my hats and gloves at 24oranges HQ ready to go skating. The last time the canals froze in Amsterdam was February 2012 and back then I had a broken leg from roller skating and missed out on all the fun. I couldn’t be happier to finally get to skate this time around. Practicing any of my figure skating jumps was not an option though, sadly, since the ice would crack in places as we all skated over it. It got a bit scary: getting on and off the ice at strategic places meant relying on the help of strangers and nobody is going to tell you where to skate and where not to, which is all very unregulated yet freeing.

I saw a guy cycle on the ice while texting, I saw girls and boys playing hockey together with some adults and I saw people skating for the first time on speed skates.

Tags: , ,

February 23, 2018

Stay over in a 1950s Fokker airplane

Filed under: Aviation,General by Orangemaster @ 6:50 pm

Het_interieur

In Hoogerheide, North Brabant adventurous folks can stay over at a Bed and Breakfast in an old Fokker 27 aeroplane, the most numerous post-war aircraft to have been manufactured in the Netherlands and one of the most successful European airliners of its time.

The plane has a big sofa, small kitchen and even a sauna. Hosts Gerhard and Esther Slootweg wanted to provide optimal comfort with a nod to the 1960s, although the planes are from the late 1950s. The accommodations aren’t far from the Fokker factory and the Woensdrecht military air base, and get a lot of ‘flyers’ as guests.

The Fokker Bed & Breakfast was on a Dutch television channel that caters to an older audience, and is getting all kinds of bookings since.

(Link and photo: omroepbrabant.nl)

Tags: ,