Amsterdam: Narrowest House in the City? The World?

 Step Right Up to the Narrowest House In The World?

Alley-houses. A single door width at street level, single windows going up.

Several cities around the world boast this kind of residence, built in the alleyways, as the narrowest in the world. See Scotland's bid at ://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/1634975.stm; and Brazil's at ://freshome.com/2007/11/06/narrowest-house-in-the-world-just-1-meter-wide/

Alley-house in Amsterdam. Narrowest house in city?

The advantage of this location location location is, or used to be, low taxes.  Taxes were often assessed based on front footage, or first-floor footprint.  In some places, that practice led to overhangs on higher floors, extending in various directions.  Many places boast skinny houses built in the equivalent of alleys between other buildings.

Which is the narrowest in Amsterdam?  The contestants line up.

We recall that this is, but another site shows another house entirely: see ://goeurope.about.com/od/amsterdampictures/ss/amsterdam_7.htm/.

And this next one shows a clock facade:  ://www.amsterdamtourist.nl/en/home/about+amsterdam/Amsterdam+Surprise/article/xp/content_artikel.Surprise+EN+-Narrowest+house+in+the+world/default.aspx /

There is a house near Conwy Castle, Wales, that makes the same claim as the world's narrowest house.

So, in Amsterdam, said to be the narrowest house in Europe. See Another narrow house. Then there is this one at Singel No. 7, fair use thumbnail from ://farm1.static.flickr.com/54/128061040_a35ac665e7.jpg

said to be the narrowest house in the world:

Then there is this one,


fair use from http://www.nedwater.eu/pictures/amsterdam%20narrowest%20house.jpg

Do an images search for narrowest house Amsterdam, and see even more. Somewhere is a site with stories about how they came to be, but we lost it. Gentlemen, start your facades.

Art in Amsterdam - Rembrandt; VanGogh; Vermeer; the Rijksmuseum

 Art in Amsterdam:  Artists, Museums

Rembrandt. 1606-1669.

Find his history and place in art at ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/rembrandt/. At that site, you can click on specific works - go to The Night Watch - one of his most famous.  Here is a fair use thumbnail of The Night Watch from ://college-de-vevey.vd.ch/auteur/livres/connaissance/tomeIV/night-watch-rembrandt.jpg

The Night Watch.

The 1642 painting is also misunderstood as Night Watch. They are just militia.  No reference to time of day. The dark color is not the time of day, or event.  Varnish darkened over time and when that was removed in 1942, the name stuck.  The group in the portrait, and the real title, is Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch, Kloveniersgoven militia, civic guard, caught informally, just before moving out.  See ://www.dutchamsterdam.nl/139-rembrandt-night-watch/  Some of the officials did not want to pay because their faces were not full front. See www.historyofholland.com/rembrandt-and-the-nightwatch.html/.

Back to the ibiblio site at the top, click on the sections for his individual portraits - note the light and dark, the light source, the fading and contrasts.

This Rembrandt statue in Rembrandt Square in Amsterdam highlights the light. Walk around it and it appears to move, the folds of the gown, his expression.  His house is now a fine museum. See The Rembrandthuis at www.rembrandthuis.nl/cms_pages/index_main.

Rembrandt Statue, Rembrandt Square, Amsterdam

See Rembrandt Square, the old Butter Market, at
aviewoncities.com/amsterdam/rembrandtsquare.

The Rijksmuseum.

This is worth a day in itself. Save your museums for when it rains.

Or, you can download the Rijkswidget and see a different painting from the collection every day. Go to rijksmuseum.nl/widget?lang=en.

Trips trigger the past. I found there a particular painting, Old Woman at Prayer, by Nicholaes Maes 1656 - a reproduction that was absolutely huge (the original is little) had been familiar since childhood.  That is a little kitten scratching at the lower right corner of the tablecloth.  Any painting there:  see the website's easy referencing.

Old Woman at Prayer. 


Fair use thumbnail of Old Woman at Prayer at ://www.wisdomportal.com/Gratitude/Maes-OldWomanPraying.jpgIt is even reproduced in the museum store. To find what you want: start at masterpieces, selecta theme (for this old woman, at her meal, I typed in "woman;" and scrolled across every single object-painting with woman as a main theme. Ingenious locator. Go to rijksmuseum.nl/index.

Going up the walkway, we saw a joint in the lion's mouth and lots of tourists taking pictures. So did we. Amazing how legal things can blend in, regulate behavior as it affects others, but not in privacy; and people just make choices.  In the Netherlands, soft drugs like hashish and marijuana are treated differently than hard drugs, and users are not punished:  go after the big dealers. Decriminalize.

US approach:  Make something illegal as to users.  Then see all the negatives of deputizing and enforcers fly about like, pointing fingers, regardless of what they do in their own lives, like so many airborne monkeys. A new Oz.

Van Gogh Museum.  Then see the VanGogh Museum across the way. Modern. This site takes you to many cities and sites - go to arounder.com. For the Van Gogh in Amsterdam, go to amsterdam.arounder.com/arounder_specials_van_gogh_museum/java. For VanGogh himself and his art, go back to the Web Museum site, Paris - ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/gogh/.  We understand that many tours do not go to the Van Gogh because it has an admission fee.  It is worth it.

A favorite in Amsterdam - The Potato Eaters, unforgettable look at regular people, homely like you and me, eating regular food.

The Potato Eaters.

Fair use thumbnail of the Potato Eaters from ://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anthfood/images/Potato_Eaters_Van_Gogh_April_1885.jpg
Click on the thumbnail of the painting at the site, and the large size appears. For VanGogh fake paintings issues, see vggallery.com/misc/fakes/fakes2.

Johannes Vermeer. A huge mural here. Here is the Rijksmuseum gallery of Vermeer works: rijksmuseum.nl/aria/aria_artists/00017083?lang=en. Girl with Pearl Earring. Vermeer's Painting. See about-vermeer-art.com/vermeer/vermeer-oil-paintings/paintings/1.

Here is Vermeer's Milkmaid.

The Milkmaid.
Fair use thumbnail from ://www.navigo.com/wm/paint/auth/vermeer/vermeer.milkmaid.jpg/  You may remember Vermeer from his Girl With a Pearl Earring, later a book.

Amsterdam. Anne Frank's Window View - Her Beloved Tree

 Keeping Up Museums

The Amsterdam Chestnut Tree

Keeping up museums takes many forms.  See the New York Times, October 2, 2007. There is an old chestnut tree, outside the window, outside Anne Frank's room in the Annex where she hid with her family during World War II in Amsterdam. It is ailing and about to get emergency resucibarktation measures. It has fungi and rot, like the rest of us, at 150 years old.

While the globally familiar Anne Frank house gets publicity for its fine work to boost this tree, perhaps the Anne Frank house could expand its exhibit to include reference to those others in WWII who kept diaries, children, teens, young adults.  Themes emerge in travel - what it was like in WWII is one of them.

We deeply revere Anne Frank, but there are other diarists of World War II, not just Anne Frank.

Deaths of children.

Use her fame to teach about some of the others, like Petr Ginz, in Prague. His diary came to light late, but he was involved and witnessed the everyday deprivations and deportations of Jews for several years of the occupation, before himself being sent to Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. See Places of Petr Ginz. He was not sequestered and in hiding; but lived his life with day-to-day Nazi contact.

Anne died at Bergen-Belsen, see Germany Road Ways, Bergen Belsen ; others of her family died at Auschwitz, is that so?  She had been quiet and introspective, and gifted.  Petr was artistic, but more rough-and-tumble. Then again, he could be:  he was not in hiding.

Child diarists, WWII.  Keeping in mind more than Anne Frank. The death camps. Here, Auschwitz, Poland, where Petr Ginz of Prague died

Amsterdam, Theater for Registering Jews WWII

The Netherlands remembers, see the list of Holocaust Memorials and topics including Jewish life in the Netherlands, at ://www.kennesaw.edu/holocaustmemorials/amsterdam.shtml/ This is the Hollandsche Schouwberg, now a Jewish memorial museum.
Hear an audio presentation, at ://www.kennesaw.edu/holocaustmemorials/amsterdam.shtml#04/

Amsterdam, Hollandsche Schouwberg, Theater, Holocaust Memorial

Jews had to register in this area, that had served as a community theater. When they were called to be deported, I understand they also had to assemble here.

Your Meme on Drugs: The Netherlands, Pusher-Control, User-Help

 Approaches to Substance Use and Abuse

Punishment vs. Monitoring

The Netherlands and the United States foster different memes on substance use and abuse

A meme a contagious idea. See www.memecentral.com/; and see more books on it. Cultural ideas spread internally and globally in ways we do not understand: as by meme. Internationally, data is accumulating as to what works in managing drug use, see International Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (I-Adam) ://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/topics/drugs/international.htm/, and we would like more information on why the Netherlands does not participate. They could help out here, in coordinating countries' policies and resources. 

The value of a meme.  A meme is useful in moving public opinion.  It is an idea that can replicate and evolve; a bit of cultural information that spreads and can be changed and adapted in the new setting; an idea or behavior pattern that is "caught" and spread by imitation. See, for example, //thedailymeme.com/what-is-a-meme/. The term originated in 1976, says the site, and more detail is there, and identification of books on the topic.

America's vs. the Netherlands' memes, reflected in their laws

• American Meme.  Punish the users. Can't afford or have the means to get the big pushers, and they win anyway because, with all the profit in the drug business, another dealer arises. 
• The American punitive focus against users is ineffective. A punitive approach would be more effective as to dealers, but we can't get at them.  The demand is too great, and the money too much.  This is true in other areas of human exploitation . Take prostitution:  arresting the ladies over the millennia has not changed the demand.  But if the pimps, the organizers, the forcers had been punished all that time, the result may be different.  
• See a comparison of the United States and the Netherlands in this area at ://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/67/  The Netherlands separates the soft drugs, like marijuana, as an acceptable risk; from the hard drugs, the unacceptable risk.  The soft ones are available at controlled outlets, the coffee houses.
• Our violence and incarcerations are substantially up.  Theirs are substantially down.  See the drugwarfacts chart.

The Netherlands memes - contagious ideas - took hold and are now codified as public health matters.  That is more important than punishment as to users. 

Risk allocation.  The reasoning includes that there are those acceptable risks to society, as for hash or marijuana; and then there are the unacceptable risks to society.  Unacceptable include heroin, ecstasy, cocaine, LSD, and now "fresh magic mushrooms" are on the unacceptable list. See the drugwarfacts site.

Separation of user vs. dealer.  Possessing, dealing, selling and producing are criminal.  Use is not. There are even safe-injection rooms. Go after the large-scale trade.  Not so much the little dealer. Foster the controlled setting to get the soft drugs, so the user does not have to come in contact with the hard stuff or the really bad dealers when making a purchase.  Separate environments, ideally.

User gets a safe harbor.  Offer an environment, treatment, accommodation for safety and medical needs, because the reality is that drug abuse is here.  Further meme. Cultural approaches to drug use, drug culture, and use effect management, can be structured for the common good, rather than for the satisfaction of those who like to see others punished when their behavior may well not affect the punisher otherwise. It's the idea of the thing.

American Victorian Sunday School lesson card: Good and Evil

Scope of resolution:  A medical-educational approach is not totally effective, either, and has its own problems, but is better than the American model. Is that so? Fewer murders, for example. It is pragmatic, and protective of those needing protection, see Drugs Policy in the Netherlands, an older piece (1997, needs updating) at ://www.ukcia.org/research/dutch.php/ It does offer analysis of the policies and Dutch culture, circumstances, and why its approach works better for it than criminalization. Dense population, urbanized, strong belief in individual rights, high value on the common good.

But can usage be contained, or does usage spread even more when available. How about kids. Is that ok, can it be incorporated into a larger culture so the rest of us can go about our  business. The Netherlands seems to be on the right track in pursuing tolerance, see ://www.amsterdam.info/drugs/.

Memes spread in friendly soil.  Educate. Education can foster memes - see ://www.drugpolicy.org/marijuana/factsmyths/   Get the facts out. Keep them updated, vet everything.  So far, the facts seem to support that it is time to get the money, the profit out of exploitation, offer an environment for it, and monitor, not prohibit as to the user.

Decriminalizing drug use?  Focus on the dealer, producer?

The meme is already spreading, from California to New England. See Hartford Courant today, 10/16/07 at Op-Ed page A9. This is a reprint of a Los Angeles Times piece by Traveliste Rick Steves, Europe Wages Selective War On Drug Use. Read it at www.courant.com/news/opinion/op_ed/hc-steves1016.artoct16,0,5960624.

The Netherlands.

An illness, a condition, not a crime. Go after the dealers. Use the police for that.  Then send in the medical and educators for users and anti-drug ed. It works. Find (if your research corresponds to that of Rick Steves) no significant increase in marijuana use by young people, only a slight increase in the overall population.

It is more fruitful to focus on the hard stuff, not pot. Europe has made a choice, and put their money and minds there. Rick Steves' closing sentences - "European leaders understand that a society has a choice: Tolerate alternative lifestyles or build more prisons. They've made their choice."

Go there. Rick Steves is right.

News dateline Netherlands - Holocaust documents in Bad Arolson, Germany

 Tracing Persons,  Families, in the Holocaust

Attention must be paid.

The International Tracing Service, based in Bad Arolsen, see ://www.its-arolsen.org/english/index.html/ has released news information of a Nazi archive in Bad Arolsen, Germany, that holds information about victims and their histories, and the process of the exterminations.

Transparency obstructed.  These documents are being given to certain institutions for examination, but families and survivors want the release to be general and unrestricted. See
www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/articles/WashingtonJewishWeek/HolocaustSurvivorsSteaming.htm/  Why does the United States prevent electronic access from the Holocaust Museum in Washington to the Bad Arolsen archives, see http://hnn.us/articles/38788.html/  Survivor outrage. What happened to that issue?

As of 2007, it looks like policy decisions were made in the US as to who was a victim, what groups did what, did American corporations involve themselves in aspects of the Holocaust for profit, such as providing means to those ends?  and they do not want new information to come out or change that?  Is that so? See IBM and the Holocaust at ://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/articles/ag/BadArolsonIBMandInsuranceCompanies.htm

Transparency. Open the windows. What's behind the woodpile? Here, Austria.

Visit the website for how to make inquiries. An layperson's overview of this organization is at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Tracing_Service.

The fates of millions are documented there.  See ://www.religiousforums.com/forum/current-events/76170-holocaust-archives-bad-arolsen.html

History sites - Netherlands in the Global Picture

 Timelines

 How long since you were in school. Take time to put each country visited into a larger perspective.  The boundaries, the concepts. Timelines clarify migrations.

Recommended:  Do not miss the Metropolitan Museum's site on timelines. Go to www.metmuseum.org/TOAH/ht/08/euwl/ht08euwl.htm, for the Low Countries 1400-1600, and play around the menus for whatever else you want to know.

Planning for, say, two days in Amsterdam. Resource.

 Thirty-Six Hours Series, NYT

A good resource for any trip is the New York Times travel section, for articles under the "36 hours" theme.

On July 22, 2007, the "36 Hours Amsterdam" by Gisela Williams at page 11, laid out an excellent overview. Complete with map. This is especially good because it includes sites for real activities, not just walking and viewing. Try it. Get a bike, eat, find a bar, dance, go up the watchtower, discover pancakes, dress up, go to the factory and party and beach it.

Food - often fine Indonesian; Dutch East Indies history

Food - often Indonesian. Excellent.  The best heritage from a colonial past is the immigration back to you when you think you are done.  Your culture is enriched, the formerly exploited get a boost in European citizenship if they want, and the food is enriching.  Indonesian food:   http://www.indochef.com/  Go to the fast food steam table places.  Excellent, believe it or not. Pop in, point to what you want, enjoy.Buy imported ingredients online at ://www.dcimports.com/inspec.html/.

Indonesian was best for fast food. For a full Dutch meal, there are many soup-stew-potato combos. See recipes at www.godutch.com/windmill/recipes.asp?id=all&hist=2. To us, that looked like the Irish - our roots - don't let a root go to waste.

Whenever an address like this is too long, just stop at the dot com, and see what else is helpful.

Indonesia was a Dutch colony, and has a long and varied history - see www.regit.com/regitour/indonesi/about/history. You may remember the colony as part of the Dutch East Indies - see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_Indies.

Itinerary After the fact - Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg

We did these three countries in one trip:

NETHERLANDS -
1. Amsterdam,
2.West to stretch and see the sea: Zandvoort
3.South to tiptoe: Lisse - and the tulips
4. South meander: The Hague - Leiden - Delft -
5. World War II - Rotterdam
6. West to particular nest of windmills - Kinderdyke
7. West to Bridge Too Far area, World War II - Nymegen (this bridge they got; it was Arnhem that was too far) and Grosbeek (also Canadian army memorial)
8. South toward Mastricht, too much traffic (Bush there) so lovely time at alternate small scenic Valkeburg
9. World War II - Bastogne

LUXEMBOURG -
9. Ettenbruck -
10. The General Patton memorial at Diekirche
11. Castles at Vianden, - Larochette
12. Luxembourg City -- the tunnels

BELGIUM -
13. Napoleon at Waterloo
14. Brussels - do feast on the street vendor snails
15. Ghent - Kortrijk -
16. World War I at Ypres - my uncle (Canadian) fought there; a distant cousin with the Scots is buried in nearby Arras, France; look it all up at the documentation office at Ypres and go find them. Nobody forgotten until forgotten.
17. Antwerp -stay on the 1950's retired and moored cruise liner near the old city docks

NETHERLANDS -
18. West to Middelburg - see the model of the bomb that decimated this rural town WWII
19. Domburg and rural peninsula areas, over the dikes
20 Gouda - park and walk, even if hefty walk. Canal parking is risky.
21. Alkmaar -- must see the cheeses. Stay in center Alkmar-
22. North and west and drive across the huge dike holding back the North Sea, the Afsluitdijk -
23. Medieval Urk, once an island, now in the middle of reclaimed polder
24. South again to get more of Bridge Too Far area - Het Loo - Arnhem (there the big bridge is, the one that was too far) - Amersfoort -
25. North to Haarlem -
26. Amsterdam - Hoofddorp was best place to sleep before flight out next day from Amsterdam's airport