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The American couple Scott and Jean Adam, who have been sailing around the world since 2002 in their sailing yach ‘The Quest’ have been killed by gunfire aboard their yacht, which had been hijacked by Somali Pirates last week.

I have noticed some weird aspects to the story. First of all, they sent four warships to surround the yacht. That seems odd since there’s no way you could stop an good sailing yacht even with 4 war ships, so if ithe number was an attempt to block the ship that would have been fruitless.

Secondly reports say that ‘before the negotiations started gunfire was heard’ and when they went on board the four Americans were found dead and some of the pirates as well.

So what exactly happened here? Did Scott and Jean Adam manage to get hold of some of the pirates weapons? Why would they do so with four war vessels surrounding them? That doesn’t make any sense.

Maybe some pirates started to panic and started shooting, but that doesn’t explain why there are dead pirates as well.

Or what about option three: a fucked up rescue operation? Or option four: a mutiny and fight amongst the pirates? Lots of options on the table here, maybe later on someone can find out what really happened aboard the Yacht the Quest.

I find it incomprehensible that the international community has not been able to come up with an answer to this sort of piracy in years. With advanced technology it must be relatively easy to detect and defuse these guys. They can see the dust in your belly button with their spy satellites so its only a question of a decent sweeping routine combined with some radar-sharks with evolved DNA that fly and bite off the heads of pirates. Its just an idea but you get my drift.

After a day of horrible, rash violence in the Libya uprising we get to see Mr Gadaffi, whom some said had already fled to Venezuela, but in a very strange and unsettling setting: holding an umbrella in an old lorry, wearing Russian ear-warmers. What a surreal image. It must have been done on purpose. But what does it mean and why these propagandistic choices?

The obvious explanation is that Gadaffi fears for his life and does the ‘Look, I’m a nut, please don’t kill me’ routine.

But a nut would speak about strange stuff. And he doesn’t. He just says I refuse to speak to you because it started to rain. And he is holding his grey umbrella while sitting in a 1960 style lorry van. Completely unnecessary since he’s already inside the van. What’s he holding the umbrella for? Is he scared that the lorry will get wet? Why the weird grey coloured sober umbrella? Russian ear-warmers? It a scene so weird even David Lynch would probably scrap it.

Now of course Gadaffi always was a colourful tyrant known for his posturing qualities. The war crimes he committed last days stand in stark contrast with his public image, because he is purposely playing the ‘sweet lunatic’ here. There is only one other possibility. That is the possibility that he is genuinely insane. Which is quite likely, for one must be insane to use ones air-force on ones own people.

Let’s hope the Libyans will succeed quickly in getting rid of this tyrant. I think this is the one case where NATO actually could make an impression as something not entirely irrelevant when it comes to freedom and democracy. So I say: intervene, and do it know. This is a place that needs a UN peace force. Libya consists of several tribes and there is a huge potential for civil war there. Institutionalize Gadaffi, get a peace keeping force in and let the Libyans for legitimate political parties and hold elections.

These have been two interesting months, to say the least. Whatever the real causes are, fact is that the current chain of revolutions is unprecedented in history. I cant recall any other period in history where such a chain of revolutions took place. Now Libya looks like its going to fall, lets hope all other tyrants are next. We need to make sure that humans rights and civil liberties are a global and not just a local phenomenon.

As to Gadaffi, here’s a song for you, old man:

Question: Does someone who frantically opens and closes doors as some sort of psychotic habit care about doors?

Obviously not, they are just there because they fell into his habit. I feel the same way about most people who claim to be into poetry: they don’t actually care about the substance, its just something that fell into their ritualized personality. Its just a piece of furniture of their soul.

The above observation is the actual cause of much frustration. Replace poetry with ‘love’ or ‘me’ and you see what I mean: most people cannot by nature be truly interested in any substance. The fact that they protray themselves as such doesn’t mean a thing. Its just social baggage. They learned to behave that way in order to be safe in this world. They pretend they love poetry because this identity protects them from the void.

A lot of people will be scared of the above idea, because in reality it means that most people are ritualized fakes. Well this is true. I dare you to go out to any bar or cafe and watch the environment attentively: there is hardly anyone who notices anything in their environment. They are some sort of ritualized fakes that do not live in reality. You have to force your presence upon them before they notice anything.

The military have a technique that consists of trying to remember and observe as many elements of your environment as you can. I often try practise this technique and I think its also vital when it comes to writing poetry. Think of it in this way: if you cant observe the world then how could you possibly observe your own thoughts? The observational skills are the same. Learn to be a brilliant observer and you are very close to being a briliant poet, or a brillinat artist, or a brilliant whatever.

It was in the news all around today: one of the sellouts of this century, at least that it feels that way to me: the Huffington post is bought by AOL for 300 million dollars.

What was special about the Huffington post? It was that it filled up a true gap: it proved there actually is a leftist American movement.

I have been watching Slavoj Zizek on Al Jazeera interviewed about Egypt. In the interview he analyses the actual lack of a left wing as the exact cause of the ‘radicalisms’ going on around the globe. That interview can be seen here:

So, I feel the exact same way as Zizek: what an utterly depressing message is this, to – all of a sudden, our of the blue – sell the most important leftist news-source to an incredibly conservative and irrelevant dinosaur as AOL. Very, very depressing. Except for the person who made 300 million with the deal, who is laughing all the way to the bank. If she ever gets the money, that is. Because my guess is that the Huffington will deflate like a balloon and soon there will be little left of it. And then she might not be so happy with AOLs Arabian owners who paid for 25 million users and their posts.

But philosophically, what a perfect moment to snuff the left media out – one year before the enxt elections, with the Teanutters warming up to take America over.

That’s a scary development. And as in all horror-films, such scares depend on their instant appearance.

Another philosophical angle: it seems a repeating pattern: a broad base of users builds a content network (and I think everyone would agree the reason the Huffington is popular is because people love to read critical comments of other users), its sold out for lots of money and deflates immediately. Isn’t this rather a modern variant of piracy? Is Arrianna Huffington a modern day pirate, or did she completely sell out her own principles?

What struck me as REALLY WEIRD is the news that she ‘will be the head of this-or-that department’ after she just earned 300 milllion bucks.

Think about it. You just earned 300 million bucks by selling your weblog to a corporate giant.
Are you inclined to sign a job contract with the firm? Of course not.

Any clever person would sell, and start an alternative.

So my guess is: the job positioin was either part of the deal, that, or Arrianna Huffington really does believe that AOL will give the Huffington Post ‘The speed of light’.

At any rate, it all stinks like a limburgian cheese. Then again, there must be at least SOMETHING wrong with you if this strikes you as the image of a ‘leftist person’:

This week the Iranian government hung one of my fellow countrymen because of unclear reasons. I decided to write a poem about it when i saw this picture, so here it is. This work is free of copyright so you can reproduce it wherever you want.

Let’s talk about the guy in the safari shirt.

This woman named Zahra was hanged
because she drank alcohol, or protested the government, it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter to them and it doesn’t matter to us.
Forget about Zahra. Focus on the chameleon in her hand,

can you see how it took the color of the street, can you see
the shopping bags, the guy in the safari shirt?

Let’s talk about the guy in the safari shirt.
He cannot be anything else

than a guy with a belly
in a too small safari shirt
even if he tries very hard

there will always be
a camera like this one
exposing him, in a way

he’s hanging just like Zahra was, it’s just that
he never drank alcohol, as far as we know,
and never protested anything either

and if it wasn’t for a stupid poet like me
no one would have ever noticed his demise

a thought that brings him great comfort
on a cold, distant evening in a room close
to where you are sitting now.

Martijn 29-01-2011

The Craft

You have found a stone.
But it is not your stone.
So you keep polishing and polishing.
The craft, you say, is to create a flawless stone
one indistinguishably remarkable.

But it’s not your craft, is it?
It is the found beast of an old tradition.
True, there are worse things in this world
than a couple of polished stones.

One day you will stretch out your hand
and offer us your perfect stone.
It will glow, in the middle of your palm
like a star only dreamed of by puppets.

You will stand in front of the mob,
expect nothing less than a crucifixion
or, at least, to meet the original stone
receiving its autograph on your corpse.

But no one moves. The crowds stare
only reminds you of the desert of birth.
You, who owns an invisible star, are
now at mercy of a nursing wasteland.

Square one, home of the creator.
But it’s not your square, is it?

It’s been around. In all its hidden glory.
In all its hidden glory. It’s been around.

Martijn 18-01-2011