The Weed in Amsterdam

So, I arrived in Amsterdam yesterday and overcame my disorientation in order to make it to the apartment where I've rented a room for a week. I was introduced to my house mate, who's name I don't know, but who I know some other things about. Let me tell you:

He is 33 years old, considers himself a kid, has an english degree and smokes dope; he's "from America"; he doesn't like to go out much so he's glad that I, as the new housemate am a girl so that he doesn't have to go out to meet one; he goes to bed at 4am every night and wakes up at 3pm; before he came here (one month ago) he was living with his parents in LA and collecting a government pension which was great because he made a lot of money and had a guesthouse and a pool but was just so sick of LA after 30 years; he's not running away--he's just DONE with LA; he really likes movies because he likes to travel, ya know? like, mentally; he thinks that horror movies have really gotten scarier because movie writers have gotten better at depicting evil, which is maybe a little extreme but maybe its important so that people know that evil like that really exists because, you know... its important to not be ignorant, that shit really happens, maybe not a lot but--once in a while. Oh yeah, and he has an English degree.

And that was what I learned about him in the first 15 minutes.

At 3am, my stomach woke me from the restless sleep due to the sound of his horror movies. I snuck into the kitchen and started rummaging. He stepped out of his room to inform me he was a bit out of it because he just took his sleeping medication. Which led to an explanation of his psychosis which might have been caused by crystal meth or all the acid he did when he was a teengager and... woah, he couldn't imagine that I had to get up at 7 the next morning and thought that maybe we could hang out when I got back from work but realistically he probably wouldn't want to go anywhere because, you know, he doesn't really like going out.

Taxes

Again I might be lagging but... I've just decided that I'm sick of paying taxes.

This is new because normally I like the idea of some responsible, socially minded, democratically elected body taking my money and investing it in roads and health care and all that nice stuff. But I've just decided, its time to quit this tax-paying shit, and it was a business journalist who convinced me.

I was telling him that I got this job in the Hague (a short term posting as a judge with the International Criminal Court, ha ha), and he said, "I hope this doesn't offend you but... how much do they pay you?"

I replied that it was the same, roughly, as what the BBC pays per-day. I gave him the number, in pounds. The reaction was an immediate FOTH (Fly-Off The Handle).

"WHAT!! That's what they pay you? You're telling me they get away with that?? And, what, you're telling me you pay taxes on that???"

Um... yeah, taxes.

"Well you know where that tax money is going, don't you? Banks, yeah... their taking your pocket change to pay for some fat-cat's bonus."

This really wasn't the rant I was expecting, from someone who writes about money all day every day, who is, basically, paid by banks.

He has a point though, don't you think?

Then to top this off, I get the news today that the Canadian government is handing more cutbacks to the CBC, and that they're even debating the idea of putting advertising on CBC Radio. If CBC Radio had ads, even I wouldn't listen, and I've always listened, I work for them!

My mind wandered to the lock-out of 2006, and how CBC employees teamed up with local community radio stations and worked anyway, had a lot of fun, and did a better job than when they had managers breathing down their necks. The CBC's got a lot of fans, so why not directly sponsor these stations? (Although I hate the idea of funding-drives like NPR has.) The problem is, we'd all still have to pay taxes, pay for subsidies for the oil industry, pay for wars we don't want to fight, all the while watching the things we care about being clumsily hacked-away.