Read All About It: The Republicans' Predicament

The paper of my own province, Noord Holland, has my piece today about the Republican Party's predicament. You have to be able to read Dutch (although it has one picture).

Why is it So Difficult to Vote?

This article by way of a colleague on how ex-pats have great trouble at times even to get a hold of a ballot, let alone getting it counted. The description here of how things (do not) function stateside is one concern people have about tomorrow. Sure, it's likely to be a turnout without precedent in living memory, but election day mechanics have been on the front burner now for almost eight years. Why do things not function more smoothly? Well, much has been done by many dedicated, hardworking officials and volunteers in many jurisdictions to improve things, so it's not inevitably going to be mayhem at the polls tomorrow. But part of the problems that remain is a lack of resources, ultimately caused by a reluctance of many Americans to pay the bill (that would be taxes) for a civilized society. So what you get instead is a country with many pockets (physical and metaphorical) of variations of something less than civilization. Most Americans do not seem to mind too much most of the time. Being somewhere else now, "civilized" Western Europe, I must say that it's nice, on the one hand, to have public things taken care of pretty well, generally speaking; on the other hand, there are those bills ...

Riding with a Cold

It can be done, as I demonstrated today on the Sunday ride, but it has to be done with care. I got comments at the coffee stop for wearing a balaclava (and full gloves, and booties) when the temperature was about 8 centigrade--mid-forties, in other words. But it made getting started (new winter starting time of 9 am) easier. I also was careful not to push it. Did my turns at the front, but my pulls weren't the longest or the hardest. Our leader, John, was back from his long summer weekends in the Limburg hills. It was my first Sunday ride with him, a legitimate former racer, on the ride, and it's clear we have a natural leader (in addition to a sponsor). John also seemed to have the best legs today. We were lucky with the weather: cool, but sunny, and little wind. This is not typical Dutch fall weather, but the guys were commenting how things are different these days from twenty years ago: the leaves stay on the trees longer, in part because there seem to be fewer fall storms also. Still, there were plenty of (wet) leaves on the ground, and there were many turns we took a little gingerly. It being November now, it was striking how many people have already switched to mountain bikes. My group, they mentioned today, has 6 degrees centigrade as a lower limit for the road bike. If it gets any colder, they take their mountain bikes and look for sheltered, off road routes to our regular coffee stop, de Vuursche Boer, in Lage Vuursche (a "town" with a very high Hans and Grethel content) where we have our own table (we think). The others shook their heads when I said that last winter in Milwaukee, I had lowered my road bike limit to about 12 Fahrenheit. It doesn't look like I'll have too much use for all my heavy winter gear from Wisconsin here. For one thing, if it gets to be 12, I'll definitely be skating the frozen canals and lakes instead of riding my bike. Today I got 46 miles, and I had no trouble with my cold. Not that it's gone, but it hasn't gotten any worse either.

Coming Up in Your Amsterdam Student Paper

An interview with me: blogger, cyclist, and, oh, that's right, Cold War historian. Tuesday at the P.C. Hoofthuis in Eindeloos I'm told.

Coming Up in Your Local Dutch Paper

A piece on the Republican party I wrote yesterday. It should be out on Monday or Tuesday. As soon as I find it on the web somewhere, I'll link to it.

Winter Arrived

But it's the early 21st century Dutch winter, so it is relative. Still, I was a little unrepared for low 40s when I got on the bike early Tuesday morning, less than 24 hours after returning from the U.S. I was without gloves or a hat, which wasn't great, and the last 20 minutes into the city it also started to rain. A bit miserable, although I've seen much worse. It did mean another health hit, after the plane trip and time-difference, and in the course of the day I noticed an oncoming cold. You're supposed to listen to your body, and when it got to be time to go home, I really didn't feel like getting out there again, and the prospect of starting another commute at seven the next morning was even less appealing. There was also the chance of more rain, so I wimped out and took the train and bus home, and back again the next morning. Finished the riding Wednesday evening, this time wearing a balaclava and full gloves. I needed them--today also, when I rode in late (and pleasantly). That it has been a hard week I felt on the way home this afternoon, into a chilly East wind. Not much energy left. The good part in all of this is that if the past ten winters or so here are any guide, it probably won't get a whole lot worse this winter.

What is China Thinking?

Something I can't figure out. They just unveiled the largest statue ever of the greatest mass murderer of the 20th century at Chongqing Medical University, apparently one of the top ten universities in this vast, populous country. I guess being the founding father of the modern Chinese state outweighs things like the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution--economic and political strategies that cost millions upon millions of innocent people their lives and which, certainly as far as economics is concerned, have been discarded by the current regime. The authorities--local or national--must have approved it (if they didn't initiate it also), otherwise this thing would not exist. Not knowing much about China, my guess would be that the power of Mao as a national symbol continues to be so significant, and China's national cohesion so brittle, that the regime not only doesn't feel it can't allow an honest reckoning with Mao's bloody legacy, but that it actually actively needs to employ Mao's mythic persona to hold things together. Apparently, this kind of thing still works among the majority of the Chinese population. All this seems to indicate that there are severe limits to a potential Chinese leadership role in today's globalized world: for one thing, the regime has its hands full staying on top of rapid economic, social, and cultural change at home; for another, a regime that still derives part of its legitimacy from a tyrant such as Mao would have little credibility seeking a leadership role in an increasingly open and openminded world (which would be one definition of globalization).