I think it was about a month ago that I was trying to watch the movie “Blood Diamond” with Haseenah. Being parents ourself, we eventually couldn’t see all the cruelty that was happening in the movie and half-way shut if off. This was actually the first time that we shut a movie off, even though we’ve went through the entire Saw sequel, Texas chainsaw massacre and all kinds of other bloody movies. The terror and powerlessness of the people and children in that movie was just too much.

Yesterday, I heard that Charles Taylor, one of the leading actors in the real version of the movie, was on trial in The Hague. They moved his trial from Africa to the international court here, and I heard how he found that he didn’t find his trial fair. He supposedly didn’t get enough preparation time and refused to attend. The international community where this trial came from should be ashamed…

I wonder what the “international community” was thinking when they heard about that. Especially those folks that were put to slavery, of which family and friends have been killed, were forced to join the army even though their age was below 10, have been raped, have been looted, had their limbs chopped off… They didn’t have a trial at all!

And the culprit is calling foul… Sad.

Not sure why I’m writing this post. It’s not even really a post, but rather a picture. Maybe it’s because I’ve been in Milan this weekend, that he was sleeping when I got back and was still sleeping when I left this morning.

I miss him.

Recently I’ve come across very good short movies coming through. A movie that I like in particular is ‘Fallen Art’ by the Polish animator Baginski.

Also worth mentioning is Elephants dream by the Orange Open Movie Project , made as and open source project, using open source software only!

Yup, the blog is up again. I’ll try to make some very careful first steps again after some pretty stressful experiences.

Note to self: The corporation vs the individual never ends in favor of the individual…

The name “Jan” is back in the top-20 of popular boys-names in Holland. The most popular boy-names are currently Sem and Daan and most popular girls-names are Sanne and Sophie.

I was writing a little story about Italian hypocricy a little while ago in my blog. Haseenah showed me another story about the weirdness of Italians, and again that cut to the quick. The Italian minister Carlo Giovanardi has blamed my country “to do away with people like drinking a glass of water”. In that line he was referring to the legalized euthanasia that is only conducted under very special circumstances when the patient has incurable and unbearable condition and has made conscious request euthanasia. It’s definitely not “doing away with people” as Mr Giovanardi mentioned, but instead humanitary help, that helps people to be able to keep their dignity and prevents them from unnecessary suffering.

Anyway, if you find that this doesn’t show the Italian narrow-mindedness again, then I’ll eat my hat. Bad on your Mr. Giovanardi. And good on you Jan Peter, for asking the Italian government for an explanation. The Italian Radical party has now even called for Giovanardi’s resignation.

Related stories:
- Comparing euthanasia to Nazism ’scandalous’: Dutch PM – Yahoo! News
- Mr. Narrow-mindedness’ own website