Notes - General
- Having seen
my site recently in Netscape on a low-resolution monitor, on which it looks
truly awful: That is not MY intention or doing, and all I can say - alas - is:
This site is best seen in MS Internet Exlorer 5.0 or
higher,
and with a monitor of 1024*768
resolution or
better!
Incidentally: Since changing the site in August 2003 - to a
version with frames and a new background, your browser must be capable of
displaying a background picture as watermark, i.e. keep it in place
while the user pages through the text. (Mozilla 1.0 lacked this ability.)
- There is
much information and there are many ideas on this site, usually clearly and
forcefully expressed. Mostly I write as I speak, and much of what you
read is essentially my first effort, without polish except corrections
of typos. (This has to do with the disease I have,
M.E.,
that leaves me little energy.)
- The name
"Maarten
Maartensz" is an alias. I have
published under it on paper, and I am not interested in personal
publicity or appearance (outside an academic context), and I have excellent
empirical reasons of diverse kinds - such as being threatened quite
credibly and repeatedly with murder by Dutch drugs-mafiosi, who were also helped the
Amsterdam municipal police! - to want to make a distinction between my
private person and my appearance on the internet.
- However,
apart from this, I try to write the truth as I know it, and to do so
clearly and honestly, while in general I try to give reasons, grounds
and context - for essentially this is a
philosophical and
logical site, concerned with thinking rationally and acting
reasonably. Also, there is a considerable difference between the
parts of my site that concern Dutch politics (and are mainly in Dutch), and
the rest of it, that concerns my real intellectual interests.
- A
part of my site that is in Dutch is
about the Dutch philosopher, political activist, agitator, humanist,
genius and writer
Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker
1820-1887). He wrote his IDEAS and I give them with my comments - in
part, so far, but what there is has not been done in any comparable
way since 1887.
- Another
Dutch part relates to
ME = Myalgic Encephalomyelitis =
the disease I have since Jan 1 1979, especially as this relates to my
adventures, trials and tribulations at the University of Amsterdam - whence I
was thrice removed "because of your outspoken ideas", its Board of Directors
wrote the third time, briefly before my M.A. in philosophy - and above
semi-legal drugsdealers with allowance by the mayor to deal in illegal drugs,
who also dealt in murder-threats and attempts against those who protested,
viz. me, and against which the city of Amsterdam - mayors, eldermen,
city-council, bureaucrats - refused to protect me. This is a chilling and
bitter story, but it is in Dutch, and probably hard to understand for those
who are not fairly familiar with Holland, Amsterdam, and the University of
Amsterdam (Municipal) - where I did get the best possible M.A. in the end,
but in psychology. (Interesting, enlightening and humorous background to
Holland, also well-informed and mostly true: The UnDutchables, by
Colin White & Laurie Boucke.)
- Most of the
rest is in English, and
is broadly classified as
philosophy or
logic or
computing or
ME which is English and concerned in with the disease have since Jan 1
1979, which gives a fair amount of fairly objective information about it;
some very useful and informative links to good other sites concerned with it;
and some good medical reports for the Canadese
and English governments about
ME.
- All
of the material on my site
that I wrote has its copyright reserved to me: You are not allowed to
present it as your own nor to sell it for money, and if you want to do
either of these you have to mail me and ask my written permission (which
I may give for some parts, depending on your ends and your qualities).
- Also, you are not allowed to
hand in my stuff - or a mere rewriting of it - to get study-points: That's
simply fraudulent cheating. (I may be willing to help you, but I believe you
must do your own thinking and writing. Possibly I can recommend literature,
in fields I have some knowledge.)
- When you do use material on this site,
must seriously count with the possibility that part of this site either
has been published on paper (indeed: See my
published columns and some of the
logic material) or else that it
will be published, in part in the form of a Ph.D., and that the fact
that it is on this site means that it has been published and that the
copyright belongs to me.
- There are in fact two sites (and there is a
back-up of a part on a third, and a copy of a part on a fourth),
but since 2004 the main site I maintain is
maartensz.org. There is an older site, but since its provider has
technical problems for me it cannot or will not resolve, I've given up on it,
though I sometimes update the ME in Amsterdam part on it (which is in
Dutch). Otherwise, the opening pages lead to this site, and rightly so, in
the sense that this site contains all that site does, and a lot more, and
indeed has a lot more space, and has worked well now since 2004, without any
serious problem.
- Also, there is since september 2004 a mostly ongoing
series of regular, often daily, Dutch comments, until 2006 in the form of
Nedernieuws, in fact mails to my
brother about Hollland, and since 2006 in the form of
Nederlog, that are about what
I care to write about.
Finally:
The shortest summary of what this site is about:
Think rationally! Act
reasonably!
(And do not pretend that's easy!)
Dutch readers are referred to
Multatuli's
IDEE 136: The vocation of human beings
is ... to become humane. Maartensz' addition: Few succeed, and few indeed
want to succeed: "Video meliora proboque; deteriora sequor" (Ovid).
Translation: "I see the better and agree it is better; I do the worse".
(Reason: The worse is all too often more pleasant, more popular or much easier
than the better.)
I wish you pleasurable and instructive reading and
computing!
P.S. O yes... since there are many opinions of mine on my site, on
many topics, written at many times, over the past 12 years - for this site
exists that long, or is that young - in many moods, and quite a few styles or
tones - angry, satirical, logical, philosophical, personal - perhaps I should
add that I do not seek readers who agree with me as readers who can and are
willing to think rationally and reasonably for themselves, for in the end
everyone has to make up his or her own mind, given the information, beliefs
and desires, knowledge and ends and ideals one has.
Maarten Maartensz
Last edited:
17 Nov 2009
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