And here I thought that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper had respect for people who do not share his political views. It seems that he mocked the protestors who had gathered in Montebello to voice their concerns about his summit with George W. Bush and Felipe Calderon. According to the Montreal Gazette:

"I've heard it's nothing," he commented to reporters over his shoulder as he waited to greet the U.S. president. "A couple of hundred? It's sad."

Maybe the attidue goes with the job title. I'm reminded of the time that Jean Chretien accused NDP MP Svend Robinson of being irresponsible because he encouraged people to attend the protests surrounding the Summit of the Americas in 2001.

I keep waiting for an explanation why protests are inherently irresponsible, and why participants deserve to be mocked by their elected representatives.

I went to the Amsterdam Photography Museum today: the FOAM. They are showing work from a French photographer, apparently just called JR, who puts up large photographs in public places. The project is called 'Face 2 Face': he went to Israel and Palestine, photographed all kinds of different people in both places and then plastered up huge posters of the photos on both sides of the separation wall.

The idea was that often people only get information about people on the other side from the media, but at least now they could look directly at each other as human beings. This work is now on display at different locations in Amsterdam and at the FOAM there was an extremely interesting "making of" video in which they talked quite a bit with the people in the photos.

Two funny bits: First, the people in the photos are making completely ridiculous faces. Second, the city council for Amsterdam Centrum tried to get the one just below taken down because they considered it advertising rather than art! Funny because the city council for all of Amsterdam had already given them permission to put it up, also funny because what could it be advertising for? The museum? More like the information at the FOAM is the advertising that encourages people to see the real art, out in the street.













Some (I think) powerful photos from another exhibition:

A great photo from Denmark of a nice girl holding a melon:


When I was visiting the Tour de France was in full swing and people were very excited about Michael Rasmussen - known to locals as "The Chicken" and to me as "en mand på en cykel".
Unfortunately that story did not turn out so well.

Last weekend was just beautiful here in Amsterdam and this weekend is almost as nice. I won't comment about the weather most of the rest of the summer.

A week ago I was still hard at work finishing up my MPhil thesis so I didn't have too much time to enjoy the weather. I did walk around the city at bit on Saturday which was great since it was the Amsterdam Gay Pride Parade. This being Amsterdam, it was a boat parade on the canals!

Lots of people lined up along the water and many boats with all kinds of different people on them. As expected there were a lot of boats with scantily clad, well-built men dancing with each other (Madonna was a favourite musical choice). There were also quite a few boats with a political message. Many people feel that anti-gay violence is on the rise in Amsterdam, though it's not so clear if it's actually the case. At least one gay tourist was attacked in the street and sent to hospital just that weekend. Many boats urged people to report any kind of incidents they experience to the police. Some people had placards with enlarged versions of newspaper headlines about ethnic youths and Canadians (I kid you not) attacking gay men here.


I finished a semi-final draft of my thesis on Friday so this weekend I have more time off. I went yesterday to the beach with friends: between Zaandvoort aan Zee and Bloemendaal. A nice 23 degrees, with the water just warm enough to keep me in for 15-20 minutes at a time. The train from Amsterdam Centraal to Zaandvoort basically broke down halfway through the trip and everyone had to get off at Haarlem. This wasn't so bad, since we had brought our bikes with us and planned to make the short trip from Haarlem to the coast anyway.

A great day and only a few burns to show for it. Some highlights include these wonderfully hairy big horned cows standing in the water along the bike path and Marcel's woefully short towel.