Skywatch Friday and some prose

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Lucky me was asked to promote my first children's book for local radio. The studio is in a for me familiar neighbourhood: Zeedijk, at the border of Amsterdam's notorious Red Light District. I came there as a young child as my mother had friends in the area and in my early twenties I worked in the area for a while. 

It's just a few minutes walk from Amsterdam Central Station

On the other side of the water from the trainstation towards the center is a hotel with bar and restaurant that serves as a common meeting point as it's rather easy to spot for anyone just coming from the train. 

On closer look you see darker bricks being used in the hotel building. That's because a local resident in the Amsterdam of 1888 refused to make way for the hotel unless he was paid an extravagant sum of money. Instead of letting him get away with his demands, they simply built the hotel around his house. The story was dramatized and turned into a very watchable movie (click. Trailer)

Is there a landmark in your area that people from outside use as a meeting point?

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This week's #circlepoem (the first and last line are identical)

is a result of clearing out some of my late mother's old stuff.

He could hear her voice (a #circlepoem)

He could hear her voice

in the back of his head

every time he stood

at a crossroad in life,

about to make an important decision

Deciding if something

was important or not:

a new car, job, house or partner?

What are the really important

things in life?

Now he had to make

the most important decision

of his life,

he really longed for her

to be there with him so

he could hear her voice

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Meer lezen? Mijn verhalenbundels

What's with the obsession for genitals?

An alarming percentage of 'radical right' people are obsessed with genitals and children. And - disturbingly - the combination thereof. 

Strangely enough conservatives are terrified of transwomen entering ladies' dressing- and bathrooms. But why don't they worry about actual men do the same? A certain US president even bragged about walking in on teens in various stages of undressing.

Personally I'd like to see seperate dressing- and bathrooms for sane people and conservatives; I would not feel comfortable sharing the room with someone obsessing over my genitals:

Radical right people are waiting in line to stand at the doors of bath- and dressingrooms to check on the genitals of every single person walking in. A disturbing obsession.

While you can almost bet the perpetrator is a conservative when a child is sexually abused, they keep blaming 'the left!', 'trans!', 'gays!', 'drag!' from doing what they dream of doing. Unfortunately: quite often conservatives not only dream of sexually molesting children.

Do child abusers think they will be absolved from their crimes if they call themselves 'Christian'?

'Christian' school principal and coach Kevin Hobbs has been arrested for posession of pictures of sexually abused children. Twice. Which raises the question: why was he not jailed after the first time and allowed to keep working with young children?

Since the radical right loves people like themselves, Donald Trump pardonned Jonathan Braun, a drug dealer who assaulted a 3 year-old child. 

Should all child abusers have to face jailtime or only if they're Democrats and/or allign themselves with 'the rainbow coalition', like Matthew Inman?

Could not find any information on Inman's religious believes but someone's religion should not have any iufluence on that person's punishment for child abuse. 'Person'? You surely mean 'that man's'! Nope. Believe it or not, also women can be (sexual) child predators. In the US around 8% of all offenders is female.

The Great Leader himself has been found guilty on charges of sexual assault himself while his close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein - famous for throwing parties with famous people and minors offering sexual services - and facts like his daughter Ivanka living with him in the White House during the start of his first term as president while his wife lived in New York, raises questions.

Is it normal behaviour for a father to have his teenage daughter sitting on his lap, both enjoying her jumping up and down and wiggling her bottom?

In 'The Land of the Free' conservatives are pushing laws to allow referees and coaches to stick their hands in children's underwear to check if they are the 'right' gender to participate in children's sports. 

Officially 'because girls who used to be boys have an unfair advantage in competing'. 1] Children's sports should not be about competing and 'being the best' but about having fun, getting enough excercise and learning how to cooperate and be social. 2] Changing gender hardly ever gives anyone an unfair advantage over others, except where just the amount of musle tissue can make a difference.

"Yeah, but by default men are better runners than women so transwomen should not be allowed to compete in running!" Interesting that you think that because often women outperform men in ultra marathons. 

By nature's design different people have different (dis)advantages over others. For example: swimmers Pieter van den Hoogenband and his arch nemesis Ian Thorpe and their most formidable opponent were genetically different from all their competitors; van den Hoogenband was born with a rare 'arch' in his back, making his body more aerodynamic and Ian Thorpe had unusual large 'flipper feet' and Michael Phelps was born with twice the lung capacity of 'normal' men, making him extremely hard to beat in long distance events. 

Should they have been excluded from events in which it was only exciting to see who would go home with forth place because van den Hoogenband, Thorpe and Phelps would usually take the Gold, Silver and Bronze?  

If men really want to change their gender so they can make a lot of money in women's sports, they're not very smart, are they?

What those who sinply repeat soundbites of their right wing leaders don't know, is that it used to be normal that men and women would compete in the same sports events. Like Olympic archery. 

Because a lot of men started to complain that they didn't like being defeated by women, they demanded men and women should be divided while performing in sports events. It's true. Bigly. 

In short: demanding people be banned from a certain sports event based on gender or even skin colour is primerarely rooted in racism and misogyny.

If gender or skin colour really is an issue in competetive sports, why do jockeys and their horses have different genders and skin colours?

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