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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