Dear Belgian rights organizations,

On Thursday I received two newsletters from you (SACD/Scam/SOFAM), which without exaggeration shocked me. Since the distance between us appears to be so big, I would kindly ask you to postpone your opinion on my remarks for as long as you can. Because understanding each other is the only thing that may help us create a better future.

Raise your hand if you are at least somewhat disappointed in politics.

According to this article (based on this EU wide 2008 survey), less than 8% of the population is confident in the EU government and it gets worse as you look at national governments or parties (2,8% and 1,4% respectively). Even people that voted for the ruling (coalition) parties are overwhelmingly not happy.

"Belgische auteurs hebben al sinds 1994 recht op een vergoeding telkens als een van hun boeken worden uitgeleend in de bibliotheek. Op 30 juni 2011 oordeelde de Raad van State, dat de zaak had voorgelegd aan het Europees Hof, dat de Belgische leenrechtegeling in strijd is met de Europeese richtlijnen. Het Koninklijk besluit dat het leenrecht invoert (uit 2004) voorziet dat elke bibliotheekgebruiker 1 euro moet betalen (...). Volgens het Europees Hof is dat te weinig en moet het leenrecht geen louter symbolische vergoeding zin.

Some people may remember my previous blog ("Taming cats"), started somewhere in 2007. Well, I was smart enough to let the hosting expire, thereby losing most of what I had written on there. Like having my house burn down, at first it felt like a tremendous loss. Then, I saw the opportunity. An opportunity to start over and try a new approach.