And Justice For...

Reblogged from ipledgeafallegiance:

The United States with only about 5% of the world's population has over 24% of the world's prisoners. One of the basic principles that our nation was founded on and what many of our founding fathers thought was the most fundamental principal necessary for a free and democratic society to function properly was the rule of law...but only if it were applied equally to everyone, with no one, not even kings or royals or presidents or wealthy citizens, exempt from the nations laws.

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I just had to share this. Kort maar krachtig, is what we call that--brief and to the point.

Queen's Day(s) Later

Reblogged from A Flamingo in Utrecht:

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Although there was a great deal of celebrating this week for the last Queen's Day, my silence hasn't been the result of the world's largest hangover. With a break in work for a few days, I decided to take a bit of an impromptu vacation, even it there was no travel. Since I write for a living, it was kind of nice to take a short break from blogging, as well.

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Should’ve Been Freshly Pressed 2: Sanctuary

Today, after the Boston bombs, I have nothing to say, so it’s a good thing that I can repost this beautifully written post by The Evolution of X, formerly known as Fork in My Eye.

Should’ve Been Freshly Pressed 1 : Dear Gabby

Okay, this is the first two (TWO–way to keep me hanging, guys) submissions for a favorite post that should’ve been Freshly Pressed. But it’s not too late. Read this for the (very few) details.

Dear Gabby . . . March 20, 2011

Posted by nrhatch in Blogs & Blogging, Fiction, Humor, Joke, Mindfulness.
Tags: Mindfulness
trackback

At PiP’s request, let’s focus our attention on Blog Etiquette for a moment.

Dear Gabby:  I just read a post that makes me furious.  I am spitting mad.  What should I do?  Signed, I.Rate

Dear I.Rate:  People will not always see eye to eye.  That’s a given in life.  I suggest that you take a deep breath, count to ten, and ask yourself whether your anger will matter a year from now.  Love, Gabby

Common Sense and Sensibility

Reblogged from ipledgeafallegiance:

Common Sense and Sensibility

At least 31,940 people died from gun injuries in 2011.

34,367 people died from Motor vehicle accidents  in 2011.

No one knows exactly how many cars there are in America But, there are approximately 250 million registered vehicles on the road today. That figure includes all types of vehicles and approximately 16 million new vehicles are sold annually.

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This blogger has had several posts now about the gun issue, and he makes excellent points and comparisons. The conversation in the comments is also pretty representative.

the Earth - something to think about

Reblogged from I used to be indecisive...:

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I came across this poem by Joe Miller.  It certainly is something to think about.

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This poem was posted by I Used to Be Indecisive.

All Grown Up . . . Right?

A recent WordPress prompt asked when the first time was that I felt grown up.

Hmm.

• I felt grown up when I played hookey in second grade in Australia and bought ice cream from money I made myself by collecting glass bottles on the beach.

Painted Photographs by Sebastiaan Bremer

Reblogged from ⓔMORFES:

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Dutch-born artist  Sebastiaan Bremer  uses a variety of techniques including, etching and painting with acrylic and inks. He draws directly on slightly blurry C-print enlargements of photographs, and often adds splotches and streaks of photographic dye. In most cases, the underlying images are childhood mementos of his family and personal history.

Really cool art from a Dutch artist!

Pseudoephedrine Doesn't make Crystal-meth Only People Make Crystal-meth

Reblogged from ipledgeafallegiance:

Once upon a time I had allergies and when I went to the doctor he prescribed Claritin-D and it was like a wonder drug. It cleared my nose up and I was able to breathe again and since he gave me a prescription for it and I had a prescription plan through my work it was relatively inexpensive. Then it was announced that Claritin-D would be available over the counter and that I would no longer need a prescription and that this would be wonderful news for allergy sufferers all across America because we would no longer have to see a doctor in order to obtain the drug.

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Pretty interesting parallel!

The Night Light

Reblogged from Spirit Lights The Way:

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A 90-year-old man goes for a physical.

All of his tests come back with normal results.

After reviewing the results, the doctor says, "George, everything looks great.  How are you doing mentally and emotionally?  Are you at peace with God?"

George nods, "God and I are tight. He knows I have poor eyesight, so when I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, He's fixed it so…

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From a blog I follow.

Methinks We Will Have Far More To Worry About In The Next Apocalypse Than Zombies. Lock & Load!

Reblogged from Random Palaver From An Aging Baby Boomer:

Likely you've seen at least one of those doomsday prepper shows, or some news segment on TV by now, showing how truly prepared Americans are going to have to be to survive in a world where everything else collapses.

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Doug has some pretty interesting thoughts on the whole gun rights debate in this post and i the previous one.

Happy New Year!

A Happy New Year to all bloggers and blog readers out there!

The Bottom Line: Money and Politics in the Netherlands vs America

Photo: allvoices.com

A few days ago, my neighbor M and a few others and I were having a Facebook conversation about American politics and the pros and cons of the two-party system vs the multi-party system. In fact, it’s still going on. But I wanted to share some of it here. The discussion started two posts ago.

Funky Time!

Bwaaah! I’m in a blogging funk. I’m not the only one, either. I’ve seen other bloggers asking their readers what they want to see. I feel it’s a bit of a cop-out, but hey, at least this is a post, right?  I could write about the Aurora shooting, but I’d be repeating myself. And there are only so many photo posts I feel I can get away with.

So, tell me, what would you want my oh, so uniquely Dutch take on? Let me know in a comment and I’ll see what I can do.

Armadillos and Music

Two of the great things about living in Austin are the wildlife and the music. One of my favorite Austin bands is The Austin Lounge Lizards, and one of my favorite Austin Lounge Lizard songs is “Arnold”.  I feel like I’ve posted this before, but I can’t find it. And if you’ve listened to it before, I know you will love to listen to it again.

Hey, It Wasn’t Me

For those of you who think I’m just a disgruntled anti-americanDutch immigrant who makes stuff up, click here for a great post by a fellow countryman.

Pictures for the Fourth

Well, it’s the Fourth of July, Independence Day here in the States.  I just saw a post by an American blogger friend in the Netherlands, who posted some beautiful landscape photos of Tennessee for the 4th. I’ll do the same. Not of Tennessee, because it’s one of the few states I haven’t visited yet, but just from all over.

Click on the first picture to see them bigger. Enjoy.  Happy 4th.

Someone Get This Woman a “Stupid” T-Shirt

Photo: spreadshirt.com

I have no patience with stupidity.

Ignorance I can tolerate to a certain degree. It comes from lack of education, and it doesn’t tend to occur to uneducated people to look things up. Especially because many uneducated people don’t realize they are. And so they can remain relatively ignorant the rest of their lives. I get that.

Happy Birthday, Dear Blog!

My blog is a year old today! Well, officially I started it in April, but the first two months I was mostly filling it and the hits during that time were mainly mine, because I kept visiting my blog to see what my writing looked like when published. I hadn’t yet discovered that I could preview my posts without them being counted.

Versatile Blogger Award

My goodness, it must be award week! This time I got the Versatile Blogger Award from Sat Nav and Cider, an American blogger in the UK. Check her out. She has beautiful photos of British landscapes.

So now to pay it forward. I will:

Hello? Anyone?

One of the Mindbump prompts was: What makes your blog different from any others?

Well, I regularly google to see if I can find any other individual Dutch bloggers in America writing about being Dutch here,  and I have yet to find a single one. I just can’t believe it! There are tons of Americans in Holland blogging about their expat experiences, and I know there have to be way more Dutch people in America than Americans in Holland, so where are you guys?

Hi There!

(For my Dutch-English translating and proofreading business, please go to D-E Translating. You can also go to my D-E Translating WordPress site. Thank you.)

Welcome to my blog.

I’m an energetic, slim, reasonably pretty thirty-year-old. However, I reside in a rather shocking, obese, aching, apathetic 52-year-old body. I love living in Austin but I’m chock-full of criticism of America in general. The Rockies bring me to tears, but so does the health care system. I’ve adopted Thanksgiving, but not the Pledge of Allegiance. If I seem elated and unbearably grouchy in sometimes schizophrenically quick succession, this is why.

I love the usual: my husband, my children, my friends and our pets. I hate heat, stupidity, shoulder spurs, spiders and walking, cycling and stair-stepping in place.

I collect raft books and I’m currently developing a weird obsession with the bottoms of bridges.

When I lived in the Netherlands, eighteen years ago, I loved hot tea, wild camping in Great Britain, gardening, reading for days on end, and I walked and cycled everywhere. Now that I live in a pretty darn hot part of the US, with kids that have to be driven everywhere by car, I love reminiscing about hot tea, wild camping in Great Britain, gardening, reading for days on end and walking and cycling everywhere…

My blog is a crazy—some might say completely unhinged–collection of posts about any of the above-mentioned issues and then some. Nothing is sacred. I blatantly ignore all American no-nos. Which means I talk politics, religion, I don’t idolize  teachers and I swear (but not that much).

As you read my posts you might laugh, seethe, weep or shrug your shoulders. If you like a post, great. Let me know. If you hate a post, great, let me know. It’s all good. I’d like to think I’m always right, but don’t let that stop you from telling me if you disagree. We Dutch love a good argument.

If you want to know more about how I ended up in America and an overview of how that’s been, visit my Reading Guide.

Otherwise, have at it!

(In my posts, I refer to my husband as T, my 16-year-old son as B, and my 13-year-old daughter as R.)

Weekly Photo Challenge : Lines

Yippeeee!

In several of my posts I have mentioned what I feel are somewhat childish aspects of American culture. Like waving little flags on demand, being entertained by waiters in silly hats at restaurants and such.