The steel industry in Europe 2019

In my opinion, living close to a steel factory and having 4 family members part of the steel industry – the steel industry started to spring from a seed 100 years ago. When I say that the steel industry started as a seed 100 years ago, I mean the industry started to grow and develop. Many of the components of the steel industry consisted of basic metal machines which combined chemicals to create a chemical solution to transform chemical components into a product of steel that could build bridges, steel skeletons for buildings and other complex shapes and forms. When the steel business was created 100 years ago there was such a demand for steel but over time, and within many industries, more robots and computers take the place of the jobs for the steel workers and at the same time less and less steel gets produced because the steel industry became over-developed, and was developed in third world countries where the price of steel fell and started to compete with the development of the Master Class Samuari Steel blades steel developed in Europe.

Where steel used to be a commodity and almost in a sense like gold, it 2019 steel is falling in price and purpose because so many things have already been build and developed in the steel. Furthermore, the steel was built to last for forever, or at least the life-time of a human, and this quality has left parts of the steel market obsolete. When this phase of the industralization hits it is time for a reorganization, a change.

(Photograph, June 2019. The Netherlands. Steel Car).

 

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Kromme Nederlands

Kromme Nederlands is een taal. Het is een aparte taal en geen kromme Nederlands is het zelfde als een andere persoons kromme Nederlands. Kromme Nederlands heeft niet per se te maken met een buitenlandse taal ook al soms lijkt het zo te zijn. Nederlanders die al hun hele leven in Nederland hebben gewoont kunnen ook kromme Nederlands spreken en schrijven. En buitenlandse mensen kunnen soms ook perfect ABNs spreken en schrijven. (Foto Wijk aan Zee zijstraat 2019)

Change and transition 2019

Both change and transition are qualities that a lot of human beings have a very hard time with. Often a physical change can be helpful on some levels but not on other levels. And transition is a period that is like an impasse between two change states: the one one has left and the one the one is going to. The impasse state is like an embarking state: it is like one is at the Vancouver International Airport and traveling to the Amsterdam International Airport, Schiphol, the embarkment state is the state when one is on the airplane between two destinations. However, in life things are always a lot more complicated than only traveling from one city to the other city by airplane. Many human beings cannot change, and many human beings do not even ever make the effort to change because it is very uncomfortable to change. Changing an environment is relatively easy to do but to change oneself is something that is very hard. In psychology, there are a number of classical theories that believe that a human being cannot change. I would guess that this theory – that human beings cannot change themselves to be one of the main themes in Western psychology. However often psychological theory of not being able to change oneself is often covered over with hypocrisy. Written on January 18th, 2019. Holland.

My grandfather was a Tulip farmer

When I was a child I visited my grandparents in a section of the Netherlands called Westfriesland, Noord Holland, the Netherlands. My grandfather owned a house and a piece of land that he took care of. The house on the land was a very nice house and the land was very flat. It was always plowed neatly in straight lines, as that is what all farmers did and still do. Because my last name is van der Pol I get associated with tulips and flowers. It is in my dna. Tulips are the main industry in the province of the North Holland, the Netherlands and when strangers in the Netherlands or outside of the Netherlands have looked into my eyes all they can see is my grandfather and how he sowed tulips in the fields in Westfriesland. When I applied for jobs I got jobs in the tulip industry even though I was never taught anything about tulips – it was automatically assumed that by my heritage I was a tulip expert because it is in my genes, engineered into my brain and a skill untaught by passed down subliemely from grandfather to granddaughter.

(c)Heemskerk,July2018,photogaph.

Dutch Coast Engineering Winter 2018

Took this photograph last Sunday. It is of a yellow bulldozer on the Dutch Coast close to Wijk aan Zee. The vehicle is driving up to the Dutch protected sand dunes and shoveling in to the mountain of sand and vegetation and scoping the beach soil up and driving to the new mounting sand barrier and dropping it down there. This act may seem like a simple enough mechanism but it is actually so much more then that. This North Sea Beach engineer is actually doing two things: [1] saving the Dutch coast from ruin [2] protecting the village Wijk aan Zee from the North Sea.

Does the Amsterdam centrum care more about the Golden Age architecture then the Amsterdam citizens?

Current location: Amsterdam Centrum location, date December 10th, 2017.

Recently there has been an Amsterdam Mayor, named Van der Laan who passed away in 2017. The Dutch media and the locals I have talked to in Amsterdam say that Van der Laan was a great man. Previous to being appointed Mayor of Amsterdam he was member of the Dutch Resistence museum and he was a trained lawyer, receiving his education in Amsterdam (not sure if he practiced law in Amsterdam though).

Through my own observation, from the view point of an artist, who is to some, the lowest level of a human being on earth – but something I myself do not believe to be true – and despite everything I feel I have the need and the right to express myself through the motion of the freedom of expression codes – with that in mind – my opinion of the Mayor of Amsterdam, the former Mayor is probably not the same as the others in Amsterdam. My reflection of Van der Laan’s work as the Amsterdam Mayor is one of question. For example, I have noticed that many citizens of Amsterdam are no longer living in Amsterdam. Instead there are infinite amounts of tourists. To me, it seems like Van der Laan put the municipal financial into marketing Amsterdam to the rest of the world – and in this process forgot to protect and care for the Amsterdam citizens who were living in Amsterdam under his leadership. In my opinion, this act alone means that Amsterdam has architecture protected and restored for the needs to satisfy the tourists but not to protect the city citizens. As a Socialist myself, I disagree with this act of culture before humans.

 

Amsterdam, The Netherlands Dec. 2017

Amsterdam in the country the Netherlands is a very objective city. It is a very globalized place. That means that Amsterdam has become one of the first cities in the whole world that has followed almost 100% of the European Guidelines of city centers within the Eurozone.

The Amsterdam CS train station has tight barriers allowing only people with paid tickets to enter the train station site. There are a number of security guards checking the passengers travel tickets in the train station so this completely eliminates theft.

Amsterdam has a huge tourist industry. 90% of the people walking the streets of Amsterdam are tourists,coming mostly from Portugal and Spain.

The architecture in this city has two sides. On the one hand lots of the architecture is traditional (Amsterdam School, Middle Ages and from the Golden Age) and on the other hand there is new hyper modern architecture arising like a Phoenix into the city.

I recall my teacher Emmie Neut, telling me, that from the traditional comes the modern. One does not destroy the former to gain the newer but instead builds from it. I agree with this idea, however I worry that Amsterdam may one day become all hyper modern architecture because the upkeep of the former traditional architecture will be too expensive. But I guess I do not need to worry about that now as that is probably something that may or may not take place in the very distance future.

The Dutch love their financial equations, as capitalism was born in Amsterdam centuries ago. The bottomline is this: the incoming tourism pays for the upkeep of the Dutch traditional architecture which draws in the tourism who pay for the upkeep of the architecture. They are interlinked.

Written Dec 07, 2017 corresponding from Amsterdam, NL, Europe