November 8, 2010

Netherlands most gender equal country in the world

Filed under: General,Health by Branko Collin @ 12:41 pm

According to a report by the United Nations Development Program released last week, Dutch women are closest to being equal to men.

The UNDP measured gender inequality in 136 countries. After the Netherlands, gender inequality was the lowest in Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland, and the highest in Yemen, Congo and Niger. Among the developing nations, gender equality is the highest in Burundi. The indicators used for measuring inequality were maternal mortality, adolescent fertility, parliamentary representation, educational attainment and labour force participation.

See also: Women have low impact on Dutch work force.

Link: UN Dispatch.

Tags: , , ,

October 21, 2010

Fresh Prime Minister Rutte to keep his other job as high school teacher

Filed under: Dutch first,General by Branko Collin @ 10:02 pm

Mark Rutte, the first liberal Dutch Prime Minister since WWI, has told parliament in a letter that he will keep a teaching position at a high school in The Hague.

Rutte teaches a two-hour sociology and civics class (maatschappijleer) to VMBO students at the Johan de Witt College. He won’t be remunerated for his second job, RTL Z reports. Rutte has moved his two-hour class from Friday to Thursday, as the former date would conflict with cabinet meetings.

VMBO is a practice oriented type of secondary school.

Queen Beatrix appointed Rutte and his right-wing cabinet last Thursday, brutally squashing hopes that the Dutch could take back the record for going the longest time without government.

(Photo by Petra de Boevere, some rights reserved)

Tags: , , , , , ,

October 2, 2010

Iraq breaks world record for longest time without government

Filed under: Weird by Branko Collin @ 1:43 pm

According to the Washington Post, the Netherlands went without a government for 207 days in 1977.

That record was recently broken by Iraq. At least Iraq has an excuse: it is being occupied by a militarist pseudo-theocracy that is after its oil reserves. (Still, you have to wonder why it would take a puppet regime so long to form.)

Following the Washington Post’s definition (the period “between holding a parliamentary election and forming a government”), the Netherlands has now been 115 days without a government, but looking at the current formation talks there is hope yet that we may regain our old record.

Indeed, the caretaker government found out recently that not having any power at all can be a very powerful thing. When they had to get their budget approved, almost nobody protested. Nobody wanted to give up their chances of becoming a government party by alienating the parties in favour of the budget.

I don’t know why 1977 was such a troublesome year, but in more recent times the forming (and then holding on to) of coalitions seems to have been troublesome because of the wide spectrum of political parties that have come to fore in the last decade. Before that (and since time immemorial) there have been three major political blocks, the social-democrats, the liberals and the Christians. Those three could always form a viable coalition with a clear majority in parliament, and now they no longer can.

(Photo of Dutch government buildings in The Hague by Patrick Rasenberg, who released in the public domain)

Tags: ,

August 23, 2010

Naked woman and curious cow: election poster of the century

Filed under: Design by Branko Collin @ 8:26 am

In 2006 this poster was elected best political poster of the Netherlands of the past 90 years. It was used in 1971 by the Pacifist Socialist Party (PSP), one of the predecessors of GroenLinks, for the lower house elections. The caption reads ‘Disarming PSP’.

The photo was originally taken for sexual reform magazine Sekstant, but designer George Noordanus surmised that it could also help create a storm of protest among Christians whose political parties supported the Vietnam war, but opposed innocent nudity, thereby exposing their hypocrisy.

Although it did just that, the raised profile did not help the PSP as it lost half its seats in the lower house after the elections. Support for the poster was also divided within the party, as some members considered it sexist. Ironically enough, it was the sexist argument that in the end helped seal the deal. As one member put it, “workers like naked chicks.”

Both Ayaan Hirsi Magan (ex VVD, liberal) and Femke Halsema (GroenLinks, ‘green left’), political opposites, see the poster as a symbol of their ideals.

See also this site about election posters in the Netherlands.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

March 17, 2010

Dutch politics primer just in time for the parliamentary elections

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 8:42 am

Whoa, I thought. It’s one thing to be intellectually aware that modern Dutch society is pretty calm about people having long-term relationships and raising families without the sanction of old-fashioned marriage. It’s another thing to see a rising center-right Catholic political leader using, as the acceptable storyline to explain a resignation, his desire to spend more time with his family by a woman to whom he isn’t married.

It’s these little moments of eye-opening difference that make PPK’s blog coverage of Dutch politics so fascinating to me.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden explains why the things I take for granted about Dutch politics may be absolutely fascinating to outsiders.

Or as Abi Sutherland explains in the posting that Nielsen Hayden responds to:

We’re in an election cycle here in the Netherlands, after the government fell (and fell hard) in February, and it’s like nothing you’ve seen in the English-speaking world.

We have a controversial figure who tries to make the entire conversation about himself. We have two major-party resignations on the same day, both to spend more time with their families. We have parties moving left and still picking up right-wing polling numbers, witness parties both religious and animal-rights, socialists, greens and populists.

And best of all, we have someone explaining it all in clear and accessible English.

Tags:

February 1, 2010

Cool poster for The Hague city council elections

Filed under: Art by Branko Collin @ 8:54 am

We try to stay away from politics, but when candidates come up with cool posters like this, it’s hard to ignore them.

Philip Akkerman made this. He is an artist and a ‘list pusher‘ for the Stadspartij of The Hague. Municipal elections take place every four years, and the next one is on March 3. Several 24 Oranges commenters, by the way, will be running for office this year.

Link: Trendbeheer.

Tags: , ,

January 17, 2010

Political feed aggregator

Filed under: Online by Branko Collin @ 3:06 pm

Polifeeds.nl brings together all tweets and blog posts of Dutch politicians.

The site is an initiative of Geen Commentaar, the blog that earlier created a coalition checker and a parliamentary search engine. Although the default mode delivers an inane cacophony of local and national news, blog posts and tweets, the Advanced Search function lets you narrow the stream of opinions down to only what you need.

Tags: , ,

November 7, 2009

Fantasy political map of the Netherlands

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 11:53 am

This map shows the fake island kingdom the Netherlands could be if its geography fully followed its politics. In the real world, top left dogs Nijmegen and Groningen are separated by 200 kilometres, as are right wing islands Kessel and Urk.

Here’s a quick legend: links = left, rechts = right, rood = red, rijk = rich, steden = cities, and midden = middle.

The two regions that in reality do exist as geographical areas are the Bible Belt and the Rode Regio, an area that used to have a lot of communists, basically the Groningen country-side.

The map is one of two made by Weetmeer.nl, the other following more classical coastlines.

I can vouch for the position of Nijmegen, having lived there for ten years. Nijmegen’s and Groningen’s progressive and left-wing attitude may at least in part have to do with a large student body, making up ten percent of the population in the case of Nijmegen. Would the Catholic church have thought that when they started their university there in the 1920s as a bulwark against socialist forces?

(Link: Geen commentaar.)

Tags: , , , , , ,

October 22, 2009

“You’ve got my vote” popular with populist voters

Filed under: Weird by Branko Collin @ 4:25 pm

Supporters of populist politicians use the phrase “You’ve got my vote” far more often than anyone else.

The phrases “You’ve got my vote, Rita” (Verdonk) and “You’ve got my vote, Geert” (Wilders) are linked to 20,200 and 5,620 times by Google, according to Krapuul.nl, a site critical of extremist politician Geert Wilders. Most given names of other national politicians did not even get into double digits.

The absolute hero of the populist crowd seems to be a guy named Pim though, with 47,400 link-sized portions of Google love going his way.

Link: Geen Commentaar.

Tags: ,

September 19, 2009

Vote for your favourite Prinsjesdag hat

Filed under: Weird by Branko Collin @ 4:07 pm

Newspaper Spits is running a poll that lets you select your favourite Prinsjesdag hat.

Prinsjesdag (Day of the Princes) is the day that the government presents its budget for the next year, that the Queen addresses a joint session of both chambers of parliament, and that is always held on the second Tuesday of the year. It is tradition for female parliamentarians to wear outrageous hats during the joint session.

And rather than holding Prinsjesdag on a Monday, Tuesday was chosen because in times before the introduction of railroads, it could take a representative more than a day to get to The Hague, and travelling on Sundays was frowned upon.

(More hats at NOS Journaal. Source screenshot: Spitsnieuws.nl.)

Tags: , , , , ,