Rest in peace, Simon Vinkenoog [Dutch blog w/English option], poet, friend of artists like Karel Appel, translator of Beat Generation figures like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, psychedelic enthusiast and "weed ambassador" of Amsterdam, and author of such guides to hip living as How to Enjoy Reality. One of the European jazz-loving proto-hippies who made the '60s swing and mentored several generations of culture hackers, though he was never widely known in the US.
posted by digaman on Jul 14, 2009 - 15 comments

[E]ven if you are unemployed you still receive a base amount of [vacation money] from the government, the reasoning being that if you can’t go on vacation, you’ll get depressed and despondent and you’ll never get a job.
[...]
But does the cartoon image of [the Dutch system] — encapsulated in the dread slur "socialism," which is being lobbed in American political circles like a bomb — match reality? Is there, maybe, a significant upside that is worth exploring? [...] I think it’s worth pondering how the best bits might fit.

After a year and a half of living in the Netherlands, American writer Russell Shorto compares the Dutch "welfare state" to the tax, health care and social security systems of the United States.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on May 4, 2009 - 119 comments

On a sunny May morning, six plainclothes police officers, two uniformed policemen and a trio of functionaries from the state prosecutor's office closed in on a small apartment in Amsterdam. Their quarry: a skinny Dutch cartoonist with a rude sense of humor. Informed that he was suspected of sketching offensive drawings of Muslims and other minorities, the Dutchman surrendered without a struggle.

"I never expected the Spanish Inquisition," recalls Gregorius Nekschot, the cartoonist.
posted by plexi on Jul 24, 2008 - 111 comments

De Hermitage Amsterdam. In the early 1990s Professor Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of The State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg was considering the possibility of having satellites of the museum in the West. The Nieuwe Kerk and the Hermitage had already established a strong relationship through the organisation of major exhibitions, and Ernst Veen, director of the Nieuwe Kerk, suggested that Amsterdam would be the ideal location for a branch of the Russian museum, given the historical links between the two cities over the past 300 years.
posted by the fire you left me on Mar 16, 2004 - 3 comments

This site is edited automatically. Mediamatic, a Dutch inclination toward media and being.
posted by the fire you left me on Feb 22, 2004 - 3 comments

Threat of ban to Dutch cannabis cafés...
It'd be like an airplane without wings! Surely the whole point of buying some weed at these places is to smoke it on the premises?
posted by tomcosgrave on May 29, 2003 - 7 comments