- CULTI NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER 8 -

At the bottom of this mail, you will find the "Free Speech Zone". The idea of this zone is that people can speak their mind there, in order to shut it a bit more during meetups. These days during meetups there are scared little locals (big in size and also big in fear). There are people with over the top romantic takes on migration. These people don't understand (or want to understand) each other very well. Therefor we don't speak our minds everywhere we go - but if one finds him or herselve in a Free Speech zone, than... Just spit it out :)

Other than my kind suggestion to leave the people in Enschede mind their own business and use "Rijksmuseum" as a center for refugees in stead of rural area's, there also are some useful links to articles in the local languages. One does not HAVE to learn a local language while being in the Benelux or Germany... But I can tell every one there are no laws against learning local languages either ;)

Just on top of the free speech zone in this mail, there are some words on the "Never Ending No Show Soap". On the comment line of actual meetups, I only make small comments. In this newsletter sometimes I get into the issue a bit more.

On top of that, you will find "The Website of the Week". This week that's Quickest Quiz! Bye Greg Shapiro. You wil also find a Picture link. And also this week, some Meetups you might want to know about are promoted.

- MEETUPS YOU MIGHT WANT TO KNOW ABOUT -

One extra Comedy Meetup has been added to the September Program for Comedy - and this a Comedy Meetup in.... Köln :). Next Sunday Joe Eagan will take the stage, together with others. So DO take a look at the prices of the trains, leave Arnhem, Essen, Aachen, Frankfurt or Mainz just for some hours - because after the show is over, there is plenty of time to get home left :)

=> http://www.meetup.com/cultiNRW/events/225178218/

And tmrw in Amsterdam, all the people that just CAN'T wait for the weekend... Can get a first taste of it in De Pijp :) => http://www.meetup.com/amsterdam-expat/events/224910970/.

- PICTURES -

Travel Cherry shows people around this part of NW of Europe already for time - and will keep on doing so. Here is a link to an album with lots of nice pictures => http://www.meetup.com/cultiA/photos/26377775/

- WEBSITE OF THE WEEK -

DO Check out "The Quickest Quiz" bye Greg Shapiro! The Quickest Quiz - the fastest entertaining mobile quiz on the planet! The game: Answer twenty YES or NO questions in just ONE minute. The game goes very fast, but don’t worry, our charming and funny host Greg Shapiro guides you through no matter what!

New episodes will be released every workday. The Quickest Quiz is your daily brain workout! Read more here => http://quickestquiz.com/

- THE NEVER ENDING NO SHOW SOAP -

In many fields of society the tide seems to be turning. I hope there is something in it for the TRUELLY meetup minded people too: the beginning of the end of the "No Show" problem. In a normal world, if one says he or she will come to a meetup, someone will in fact be there or update it's RSVP...

But I guess a lot of people aren't normal meetup friends - but "special" meetup friends. To special to take a moment and update the RSVP.... But when it comes to this fight versus the No Shows I will fight behind my laptop - I will fight with my smartphone - I will fight on public PC's - and this fight is about remaining to be patient, calm and determent when it comes to defeating egotism in general - and no "shows" in specific.

Last Friday: 28 sign ups, around 10 show ups.... Come on people... I think we can do a LOT better than this... And.... You have missed a GREAT meetup btw :)

- FREE SPEECH ZONE -

As a Community Coordinator, one needs to be patient with the few people that kind of bring the level down. Being patient, however, causes a mental problem: distance starts to exist in between what one feels inside and how one acts on the outside.

Sure this distance inside ones mind is needed in many situations and conversations, this is the case just as well on air, online as face-to-face. But if one NEVER speaks its mind, then one is not in the middle of community shaping, but in the middle of a lie.

Also: it creates to much distance between who one is, and how one acts - which in fact means one gives away it's freedom in return for success. I don't want that, I want both of these things - but there is a right place for everything - and this place is.... The Free Speech zone :)

In order to make this Free Speech Zone use full to as many people as possible, it works like this: in ENGLISH I describe what's cooking amongst locals in Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands. I share my opinion. And I add links to articles in the 4 local languages: Dutch, French, Frisian and German. So.... Here we go :)

- WHY TODAYS WINNERS ARE TMRW LOSERS -

A Great and short and very strong plus beautufull German text - which is worth a complete story - which I still need to write.... sorry :)

- HUMAN CAUSED CLIMATE CHANGE DIDN'T START 200 YEARS AGO -

Lots of people tell us that as a result of the industrial revolution the climate started changing. This is not true. This week an article popped up in the Frisian press which explains how the Maya's didn't just destroy their own area, but also influenced the climate on a global level.

You can read the article here => http://www.itnijs.frl/2015/09/mayas-beynfloedzje-noch-altyd-it-miljeu/ ( Frisian )

Here is a wiki about the Maya's => https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayas ( French )

- PUSHING THE BRUSSELS WALL -

Right now in many ways, the Battle of Brussels is going on. For one, the at times over-organized Germans might start to discover that the other 98,5 % of the world is tends to be less organized than they are - which might have to make the Germans realize some of their super detailed plans simply wont make it in Brussels. For example the plan which describes quota for the number of refugees in every country. I don't think the EU needs such quota....

But in a field where quota's were working all OK, the milk production, right now the market is an unorganized mash - thanks to the burocrats in Brussels who confuse the way in which bars compete with each other for the way in which farmers compete with each other. Also nothing is being done versus the evils of supermarkets, who don't seem to care about the farmers at all - the only thing thet care about is profit.

Just last sunday on the main television in Flanders, I noticed thata LOT of farmers would be going to Brussels. Please make my day.... And make everything that's neo liberal go away. The Union is acting where there is no need to act ( they are moving policies for refugees and migrants from the national to the supra national level) and is NOT acting where it should act ( protecting the farmers versus the greedy buyers working for the supermarkets). I have no idea how this entire EU project will evolve.... But I do know that right now there is no EU of which we can say "'If it didn't exist we would start a new one tmrw"

Here's a link to the article on the Belgium Tele Text => http://www.meetup.com/cultiA/photos/26379656/#[masked] ( Dutch )

- GIETHOORN AND INTERNATIONAL SHORTSTAYS -

I'm still working on the text, sorry :)

- No NL's ON EURO 2016? -

Right now, some excitement is coming up big time in the world of football: the Dutch team might very well not make it to Euro 2016. The way people respond is typical for football: "This team is crap, the players are crap, the mentality is crap and the coach might very well be crap too". Most of all Bild Zeitung is pleased, they made the story of the Dutch demasque in Turkey THE headliner of their online edition.

Bild Zeeting never acknowledged that on many occassions the best Dutch players simply were better than the best German players, neh, they just paint a story in which the Dutch players have a super ego, and there for can't create good teams. This were in reality the Germans have EVEN MORE coherent teams than the Dutch.

This, btw is the most important element of football: team coherency, teamspirit, team strategy.... The strength of the team as a whole explains why the Germans are just as succesful as the Italians, who on an individual level are better than both the Germans and the Dutch. BTW - lots and lots of Germans don't like football because of all the hysteria around it. And I like football regardless of the hysteria around it.

I'd loved to see The Netherlands take om Germany on Euro 2016, because the current German team is over the top too. And knocking Germany out would change the sentiment around the Dutch team all together once again. But right now it looks like the prays of all German footballfans who remember both 1988 and 1992 very well are being heared: an Euro Tournament without Orange is hanging in the air. I just took a look at the Bild Zeitung website - it's funny to see how much pleasure Bild has with showing Dutchmen that lose. Maybe some day Bild will discover that it's not "Holland" - but it's "Die Niederlande".

Will the Dutch still make it? Well, Turkey has to play the Czech republic now. An away game. The Turks weren't better than The NL's today, just less bad. If Turkey loses that game, than the Dutch are back in the race. IF - that is. Time will tell. One thing is for sure though: this team isn't the best Dutch team ever. But a team that's better than the best Dutch team ever doesn't exist, so this at itself is nothing to be ashamed off I guess.

Read the entire article here => http://www.bild.de/sport/fussball/nationalmannschaft-niederlande/nach-pleite-vor-em-aus-42475064.bild.html ( German )

- THE PENCIL MAN -

On September 1, I saw this article in the newspaper. The article I saw was about a man in Lebanon, who's living there as a refugee. There's a picture of the article on top of this part of the Newsletter, and there is a link to it at the bottom. In this article, it's described how this man takes care of two small kids all by himself.

The article was written in the right way, it touched me. It's not like I am untouchable, but when it comes to the news I have developed a very thick skin. There is a need for this thick skin, because the I am not responsible for the calls a lot of families in a Dutch town called Urk are making - I am only responsible for protecting my friends and family, and other than that Frisians versus the consequences of the calls these families on Urk are making, plus I am responsible for making the right calls if people from Urk knock on my door asking for help. But I am not responsible for helping each and every person on this planet. I will explain this one later on.

For a parent making the right calls is not doable if he understands all the crying of the partner and the kids as "I need to make them stop crying" only. If a parent starts crying with the partner and the kids, then who is around to make the right calls, if the right calls are the calls the partner and kids wont like to much? Because they are hysterical?

Right now a LOT of people are hysterical, and all this because of one picture. In some European countries say 5% of the population ( the dreaming part) is overactive when it comes to helping migrants and refugees, far most people ( like always ) are sitting at home doing nothing, and the haters? They are sitting it out and are waiting for THEIR picture, where a migrant does something sick or so. Social media and so at this moment is changing the mindset of a bit to much common people into what one would expect if one visits a mental institute.

If the haters will be capable of getting a picture of young male refugees having a fight with biting, stepping and spitting involved ( this already happened a couple of times in several shelters in the North West of Europe) to go viral, then the mood might change back - than maybe even the dreamers might understand their first responsibilty is with their own friends and family.

I didn't like the story of the parents of the 3 year young boy that drowned, but there is another story I do like - and would like to share. The story comes down to this: a man went to Lebanon with his two kids, as a refugee. He's suffering. He's selling pencils in order to try and get somewhere. He also used the net to see what the net can do for him. The net answered, a man on Iceland with many followers did some research and after this, he tried to collect EUR 5.000 or so. He gets around[masked]. The man in Syria is speechless, thinks he's dreaming, decides to stay in Lebanon, and.. Has his life back. He wants to open a pencil shop now. Plus help other refugees. Articles like this sell newspapers, get one through the day, saves lives, so it's good....But.... Its not enough.

What people think kind of is the result of what screens they look at. The average Arab tuber ( you tube watcher ) will even blame the Mossad if a glass falls out of their hands ( The Mossad must have designed it for falling out of his hands ) and the average more western tuber will be influenced by scary images of LOTS of young male migrants taking one border after the other ( where violence and destroying personal property like trucks is all inside the picture ). But just two weeks later, a movie of indeed innocent young kids will make her or his mood shift all the way around. But what the people that still watch the newswebsites and newsprograms get to see, still makes a big difference. Do they get to see aggressive young males, or innocent kids? What they get to see defines what they will think of it all.

Until some weeks ago, the problems with very aggressive migrants in the north of France ( people who are trying to get to the UK) got a lot of coverage, but this stopped. This doesn't mean all the incidents stopped, it only means the coverage stopped. The reason why might be that the journalists no longer want to show how young male migrants are bankrupting truck-drivers by attacking their property. Most of all they don't want to show the responses of these truck-drivers to the migrants. These responses are becoming to be more and more racist.

Right now, with all this attention for the humane side of the suffering of refugees, I guess what they want from me is that I will become to be more and more accepting to refugees from that part of the world, without asking to many questions. The ones asking ME to pay the price, that's a combination of politicians from the center of power and also elitarian journalists. In The Netherlands, all of these people go to the same restaurants in Amsterdam and The Hague, their kids go to the same schools and their salaries are way to high. This is a group of people that has lost touch with reality. These people are thinking its ONLY the bankers that make WAY to much money. But they are wrong here.

But all this doesn't mean asking to help people that in fact need help, is a wrong thing to do - this class of people being wrong doesn't mean all the things they ask for are wrong. The rich people in the west simply want to put all their money into their own pockets. Which means policemen, cleaners, truck-drivers, farmers and so are changing into a more and more sober part of the middle class tops, or into the working poor otherwise. This changes the vote of these people in this way: people that are ending up on the exploiting side are more likely to vote for dreamers and cheaters, and people that are ending up on the exploited side are more likely to vote for realists and haters.

So that's also why all these elitarian people come up with all this attention for the refugees, in order to make the underpaid locals that are still tempted to ask why it's always them and not the overpaid people that have to pay the real bill. This real bill for the local workforce is having to wait for a longer time all the time to get proper housing, it's having to work for a salary that pays the bills, but that's it - while at the same time managers go on holiday 5 times a year. The real deal is that a lot of these migrants will get access to jobs, wont complain about the HUGE difference between their salary and the salary of the managers, so problem number one is: even more competition for not very educated and also for uneducated jobs.

One needs to compete with robots, with people from other EU countries that have enough education for doing a educated work, with students that otherwise can't afford the way to high rents in cities like Amsterdam and London, and now also with more and more migrants. I guess the ones that are asking me to not be critical right are BOTH the elitarian politicians and the elitarian journalists, and ALL of these people, just like the managers of the people that do the REAL work, and all of these people can go on holiday 5 times a year. And in fact do so. Sure pictures the like picture of the 3 year young boy are touching me too - that boy most likely was sinking like a rock after he ended up in the water. These pictures ARE touching me, of course, but at the same time they do not influence my political idea's even for 1%.

In that sense, I am different than far most people. Far most people wonder of in wrong direction way 1 if they get confronted with all kinds of pictures of people causing problems in Calais area, and they are wondering off in wrong direction 2 if they get confronted with pictures of the ones who already paid the highest price thinkable for nothing else than following a father and a mother who for some crazy reason trust their lifes to evil businessman or to the quailty of inflatable rubber boats... SO.... These kids need to be protected versus their parents, versus evil businessman, versus insane politicians, versus newspapers that put a picture on page 1 that sells, and versus.. Yeah... Maybe also versus me! Because sometimes I feel like I am a bit TO realistic...

My wild guess is that crossing 5 kilometers in a sea with evil businessman around that want to keep their monopoly (and therefor sink the inflatable boats, with the people that are on it with it), with a corrupt police force that gets paid for looking the other way, with a sea that does what it wants without having a mind of it's own, and with passengers that only know the kind of water you find in bottles, small rivers and small lakes and so.... My wild guess is that this is insane. The risks the refugees are taking, are risks which simply are TO big to take. But people are taking it anyway and the way to make this stop is to get these people decent shelter wherever they ask for it. Two parents took the risk anyway. One parent and two kids paid the highest price - but EACH AND EVERYONE of all us has a responsabilty to PROTECT very young kids versus ALL adults. Not just the parents - these parents made a mistake, like we all make mistakes day in, day out. But they never wanted THIS.

I don't like the way to realistic people or the over political correct people are acting right now. But I still liked the story of the man with the pencils though. The man that collected the money is no celebrity who makes money by organizing fundraisers. ( Celibritees are buying a humane image like this, which they need to fill their pockets even more than they already do.). So there was NO double agenda here at ALL. In that sense I can say: yes. True humanity still exists. All I can add to the story is: YES - we need to help the refugees. But not because the elite want us to help - but DESPITE the fact the elite wants us to help. And the best way to make these human tragedies NOT come back again, and again, and again, is to start electing a VERY different kind of governments. But this won't help the many many people that are in need right now.

There is NO way in which we can deal with all this problems within our lifetime, but I guess the sooner we start walking in the right direction, the better it is. The (political) will to no longer try and get richer all the time, but to only try and get better all the time, is all we need I guess..I don't see any lasting change from the greedy world we have now towards the truelly humane world we need, so I guess a lot more problems will occur, but the fact that at this moment I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel, does not mean I want to stay inside the tunnel... Hell no!

Maybe one only starts to see that light once the tunnel has passed it's deepest point, and maybe sometimes one just needs to keep going in order to get to the point where one can see the light at the end of the tunnel again. This is something which can be realizes within our lifetime: making things go upwards again. To understand what is the main cause of all the problems we have right now, is understanding what the walk further down to the deepest part of the tunnel will look like, and also what the world will look like we will see after we came out of this tunnel, if ever we do, that is.

A HUGE problem in Syria is the number of people living there. This is where Urk and Friesland are coming back in the story. In Urk, which is VERY religious, a lot of families have 8/9 kids. If way to much families are making these choices, than these families are digging the grave for the next generations. Now, if just 1,000 or 2,000 people leave Urk because there are no jobs there, than they of course are welcome to look for a job in Friesland. But if 1 billion people from Urk will come looking for jobs in Friesland, than we will keep them out if we can, with all means possible.

According to the Dutch Wiki, the population of Syria was twenty ( TWENTY! ) times bigger at the end of the 20th century, than at the start. This should mean that in 1900, there were something like 800,000 people living in all of Syria. In this century, the growth of the population came to an end - it was close to 18 million in 2004 and it's close to 18 million now. This means there is a LOT of Urk in Syria, and only a bit of Friesland. Most likely in Syria just like in Urk there is a bit to much religion and not enough secularism. The result is: at certain moment there are more local people than local resources, so some people will start to fight, and others will start to leave.

So the MAIN cause for the problems in Syria simply is: overpopulation. In Syria the problem "overpopulation" is exploding in all of our faces in the shape of the dead body of a 3 year young boy. For us, the result can be: sleepless nights resulting in needing more face creme the next day, tears on our faces, mass hysteria shifting from one side to the other all the time. But the result is NOT that all of the sudden there is less Urk and more Friesland in the middle east. Overpopulation results in having millions of young blokes with no future at all in the society in the way it is - so some of these young blokes will join evil rebel movements who have extreme agenda's, but who CAN offer these young blokes a chance to get something at least. If they are willing to lower their standards BIG time that is.

In The Netherlands at this moment people that know the real deal ( many incidents with fights amongst young males in Ter Apel, where a lot of migrants are told to go to), and with young males asking the local girls a BIT to much questions, are saying "No" to creating shelters in their own area. I think they have the right to block shelters in their own area. And if the young blokes take the next step and are starting to block the way for local girls to walk or bike wherever the want, than in the way I know the mentality of the people in the East and the North of The Netherlands, than at certain moment these shelters will be under attack.

Therefor I kindly suggest we bring the once looking for shelter to the area's where all the dreamers and over romantic people are living. Plus, let these overromantic people pay a REAL price for pushing their agenda on all of us. In the future that I am seeing coming towards us in HIGH speed, I can see a century which will make the devil even more happy than the 20th century already did. Of course and if possible we need to find the self denying prophecy, and a part of this self denying prophecy is chancing the opera part of the Stopera in Amsterdam and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam into shelters for refugees.

The Opera in Amsterdam gets visited a lot by people who want to be seen in the opera, and these people tend to to fall a sleep during the opera. And the Rijksmuseum? It has to much elements of glorifying the evil past of The Netherlands, but it also has a lot of GREAT art. One thing is missing though: a human men-kind that's worth looking at all that great art. There is a human men-kind on this planet, but if I would have to explain why it has to be human men-kind that deserves to be the dominant species on this planet, then at this moment in time I could only come up with sarcasm in twenty shades of deep black. So sure I don't think we deserve to be looking at all this great art. Because we don't even take proper care of each other. We can do this - but we don't.

The reason why the world is like this, is because in the TOP of the top of our societies it's not social justice and good intentions that are in charge - but just a bunch or predators who have a specialization called "Farming other human beings". Their main current tool is: making money on pumping a lot of money around, and get a small margin on each and every transaction. And after that take things from there. And the classes of human beings who have the power to change this, are to lazy and to scared to do anything about it, or have been fooled into believing it doesn't get any better than this. Which is 24 carats of bull shit. It CAN get better because it HAS to get better.

Right now WE ( me, you, all of us together) are NOT worth looking at great art. So let's just sell this art to the super rich. Like that we can do more use full stuff with all these millions of Euro's and Dollars. We can do more than just hanging an overpriced painting on the wall. A painting which basically is nothing but a very good painting of a bunch of greedy people who already died some centuries ago. Let's sell the Nachtwacht. And all other paintings in Rijksmuseum too.

So let the city-elite of lawyers, politicians, commercial minded creatives, and so on take a hit. Let's sell some of their favorite toys, and let's use the money for helping BOTH 50,000 people from Syria TOPS ( people that need to go home as soon as this is possible, if ever this is possible) and for helping a bit more people escaping from poverty amongst the people already living in The Netherlands. Selling all this art INDEED is a way to CHANGE the future in which billions of people will die violent deaths in this century, into a future were the resources available will not be used to get only some people what they WANT first ( looking at great art in Amsterdam), but will get clsoe to ALL people what they NEED first.

So the suggestion to change the Rijksmusem into a center for refugees is not a way to get people to read this mail - it's a SERIOUS proposal in order to OPEN the eyes of all the people who are going on holiday 5 times a year plus go to the museum and opera whenever they want. And spend some pocket-change on refugees once in a while - but only AFTER a 3 year young kid drowned to death. This boy died because NOT ONE SINGLE adult was close to him when this boy needed it the most. So ALL OF US were at the wrong place at that moment in time.

We are spending hundreds of Dollars and Euro's on I Phones and I Pads - and after we see terrible pictures on these tools, we spend pocket-change on shelter. But we still buy stuff which the ones who in fact make I Phones in China and clothes Bangla Desh can only buy if they work for 86 years, 6 months, 22 days, 45 minutes and 34 seconds - without taking a break.

And I guess that's the real and main cause for all the problems we have now: people exploiting other people to get what they want. Even if it means other people can't get what they need. In stead of people working together to get what they need first, and what the want second. That first world, the world where greed is in power, will die anyway. Let's kill that world, before it kills us. So MY vote will go to changing both the Opera and the Rijksmuseum into shelters for refugees. And this is no irony, sarcasm or anything like that. I don't believe this will happen. I have no idea what is coming at us with the speed of light, and right now I also don't want to know it.

Me and some but not many others have protested at Beursplein in Amsterdam, at Wallstreet in New York, at Beursplein in Rotterdam, in front of the ECB in Frankfurt and at many, many other places. We were Occupy. And while we were sending out a VERY clear message ( "The superrich are destroying us all" ), people just kept on going, being buzy with catching the train, getting an Ice Cream or burger at Mac Donalds, and so on, and so on, and so on...

And If I am reading the gospels, or some of the works of Plato, than I am seeing a crowd that didn't act in a different way than how the crowd acts now. Yes, there is light at the end of the tunnel, there always is, but again and again we need to walk over way to much dead corpses before we can get out. And the reason why again and again is: we are allowing ourselves to get fooled by a bunch of predetors on the top of the aperock again and again. A lot of us believe that these people are believing the things they are saying. But the naked truth is: far most of these people only believe in wealth and power for the happy few only.

This wont change any time soon, so lets get all these billions of dollars of the wall, and lets USE this money for doing the things that are NEEDED first, before we do the things we really want. Because working the other way around is like building a car with all kinds of nice tools in it - but with wheels that will crack down on you the first time you REALLY need to use these breaks REAL hard.

For example, when a 3 year old is crossing the streets.

Thanks for reading.

Here is the English wiki on Syria => https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria

You can read the entire article on the pencil man right here => http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/help-de-pennenman-uit-syrie-143-000-euro~a[masked]/ ( Dutch )

Here is the source of the story of the father of the kid that died => http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/-ik-wil-het-niet-hebben-over-die-foto-waarop-de-hele-wereld-mijn-zoontje-heeft-gezien~a[masked]/ ( Dutch )