November 17, 2011

• Political Stuffs..

  First off, SERIOUSLY?!?

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  I feel like there is much blogging to be done. I'm in love with a duvet cover today (which will become mine likely after work).. go clicky clicky.. its gorge!

  Ok, who am I and what have you done with Naomi? Sheesh..

  While I am fairly zonked, on to something a bit more thought provoking for the day (I haven't forgotten about answering the questions) but first.. 

  In the Netherlands we celebrate Sinterklaas (St. Nicolaas) in early December instead of celebrating Christmas with gifts. The abridged explanation of Sinterklaas is that he is a bishop who was originally from Turkey but now lives in Madrid, Spain. In November he takes his boat to the Netherlands (with his horse and his helpers called Zwarte Pieten (translated to Black Peters-- Wikipedia has a good explanation) and he walks on the top of the houses for a couple of weeks leaving small gifts for kids in their shoe (which they put by the chimney for him every night and sing a song to him and sometimes leave a carrot for his horse or a tangerine or something for the Peters). On his birthday (December 5th) he gives large gifts and then goes back to Madrid for a year. There are similarities between Sinterklaas and Santa.. for example he only gives gifts to the good kids and stuff like that. Another fun part of Sinterklaas is how the adults give gifts, with poems and 'surprises' where the gift is disguised in an art project. That's not where i'm going with this though..

  There is a hilarious bit on this tradition by David Sedaris: (if you don't have 15 min to listen to this, the part about Sinterklaas begins around minute 3.50 and ends around the 13th minute. The whole bit is hilarious and worth it though!)

  This year, during the parade (when Sinterklaas arrives), a couple of people watching in Dordrecht (a town in Holland---see, he arrives in many cities at the same time on the same day. Suspicious, eh?) were wearing t-shirts that said "Zwarte Piet is racisme" (Black Peter is Racism). They were not doing anything wrong. This is what happened to them:

  4 people were arrested. Now, as an American, much like Sedaris.. I for years have thought that having black helpers was just WRONG. I've heard the excuses that they're black from the chimney and that they're black because they're Moorish..  however, having white people paint their face black to dress up as a helper to a white guy who looks like the pope? Um yeah..    I will add though that the black community in the Netherlands is pretty well integrated into society (at least way better than the Turks and Moroccans). Not to take away from this website though.. clearly people are displeased (and rightfully so if you ask me).

  Just because something is a tradition, doesn't make it right..

  So tell me, now that I have biased you tons.. what do you think of the t-shirt and how the police responded to it? How about the holiday?

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  Seeing the images this morning of the Occupy Wall Street movement on TV were a bit hard to watch. Looks like they made a whole boat load of arrests. Then the intern here at the office started making cracks about how they all smell bad. I shut him up pretty quickly.. 

  I also had this happen yesterday on facebook:

  
  The article I mention can be found HERE if you're interested. I have no idea what she meant by 'bummer'. Is she bummed i made her read something? Is she bummed I don't share her beliefs? Who knows. (side note: she's married to the guy in the diaper from a couple of posts below--yes, they ended up married with 2 kids and i'm sure he stays away from the cocaine these days--but i haven't seen either of them in at least 6 years).

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  In other (non real)news I had a great time at the Trivia Bowl last night. Sure, I'm a little bit sleepy today since we got back to the hood around 1:30AM and I wasn't in bed till about 2:15AM. That said, it was well worth it. So much nostalgia! We didn't win at trivia (in part probably because we missed the entire first category because of traffic at the Holland tunnel--we were in Lower Manhattan in a standstill for at least 30 min--I think we could have walked to NJ faster). The trivia was fun though and being in the rec center was amusing. We were not the oldest people there even! After we bowled for trivia, we went back to our old campus dorm and a current resident signed us in to the building and showed us around. I was amazed both by how much has stayed the same, as well as at how much changed in the 9 years since I lived there. It was nice to see that the art room was still in full force, that the doors were still decorated and that the stoop was still standing. The unisex bathroom was an interesting (apparently post Tyler Clemente) change... the fact that the preceptors are now called RAs kind of made me sad though.

      

  After the dorm we headed over to the student center and grabbed a bite to eat before heading back to New York. My old place of employment (the pizza, coffee, sandwich place in the food court) was still there and looked EXACTLY the same. Pretty funny!

  Tonight I will pick up that duvet, pick up my laundry and dry cleaning and then go home and pack. I need to take out the trash, throw away the food from the fridge, organize the DVR.. ya know, all the usual 'i will be out of the house for 8 days' stuff. Hopefully it'll include Top Chef, House or Private Practice or something like that. I'm a TV slacker this week.

  • 3:27 pm
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