Dutch rally round ‘right to be racist’

It’s that time of year again. The stockings are being hung by the chimney with care, the hot wine stands are setting up shop, and of course, the Dutch have begun putting on their blackface, big red lips and afro wigs. It’s time again for ‘Black Pete’ to pay us a visit.

And right on cue, it’s also time for the perennial hand-wringing about whether or not this minstrel character, who tags along with Saint Nicholas as he hands out presents to Dutch and Flemish children at Christmas, is racist.

But this year, thanks to some comments by a human rights observer, the debate has taken on an almost frenzied dimension that has even seen a prominent Dutch politician call for the Netherlands to pull out of the United Nations.

The Dutch are furious that a member of the UN’s human rights committee is looking into the issue of whether Black Pete is a racist caricature. The head of the committee, who is Jamaican, told a Dutch TV station she found it impossible to understand how Dutch people do not see it as racist. Dutch people have responded with a torrent of outrage, accusing the UN of trampling on something that is an age-old tradition and is culturally important to them. A petition organised to 'save Black Pete' gathered a million endorsements in its first day. News broadcasters are dressing up as Pete in protest, and Dutch people are making YouTube videos dancing around in blackface singing about how not racist they are.

Snow Chaos: Should Western Europe prepare for colder winters?

I've been at home in the US for the past five days, and boy am I glad I got out of Europe when I did. I decided to head home for Christmas earlier than normal this year because I had a lot of holidays left to take - normally I head home two or three days before Christmas. On Friday morning I woke up to get ready for my flight to find a winter wonderland outside my window. But though the heavy snow caused a delay in my train to the airport, somehow my flight to New York wasn't delayed at all

But apparently after I left that snow just didn't stop falling. It's kept coming and coming, grounding airports in Europe to a halt from London to Milan. Brussels Airport was set to shut down yesterday after they found they had run out of de-icer fluid, but then apparently they found some more. But Heathrow Airport and Charles de Gaul are still ground to a halt as they grapple with the snow and cold. The busiest airport in Europe has now become "Hotel Heathrow" as stranded travelers have been camping out for the fourth day in a row, sure to miss Christmas with their families. The same scene has been seen at London, Paris and Brussels' international train stations, as high-speed lines have been ground to a halt. I sure feel lucky to have gotten here to spend Christmas with my family, but I can't say the same for my friends stuck in London, Brussels, Frankfurt and Paris.

The travel chaos is prompting many questions in Europe, but perhaps the most important is this - is this a freak act of nature, or an example of egregious poor planning by these Western European airports?

Seasons Greetings from New York

I just wanted to post a quick note to wish everyone happy holidays. I'm in New York at the moment, home with the family for Christmas and New Years. It's nice to be home, I haven't really been back to New York properly for a year. It's amazing the amount of sales here at the moment, particularly considering its the days just before Christmas.

Other than that everything seems mostly the same here, the post-Obama-election streets aren't yet paved with gold. A lot of my friends here have been laid off, which is disconcerting. Of course it's like that all over, not just here. I'll spend New Years here and then it's back to Zurich for me. And after that, well that has yet to be determined! January will be a time to make some plans.

Counting down...

I really can't believe there's just a little over two weeks till I move. I'd say at this point I'm experiencing about 50 percent excitement and 50 percent apprehension. It's kind of coming in waves. At times I'll start thinking about all the things I want to do once I'm there, where I'll travel, etc, and I get really excited. But then other times I start thinking about the stability I'm leaving behind, and I start wondering whether I really have the ca-hones to do this.

I mean it is a pretty major move. I'm going to be thousands of miles away from my family and friends, plopping myself into a city where I know just one person. I try to reassure myself by remembering how well my move to Chicago went, another time when I was coming into a city not knowing anyone. But in that case I did have a grad program, so I had kind of a ready-made group of friends and support system immediately at my disposal. Same goes for DC. In London I won't have that.