Category Archives: Photography

The Hood: 1991-1997

The Hood: 1991-1997

The Hood: 1991-1997


The Hood: 1991-1997
This is it: Craig Henry. Anyone who knew me when I was a teenager knew this place.

If you click-through to the Flickr page, you’ll see my annotations and notes. It’s incredible how strongly I feel about this place. Writing even the few works on the Flickr entry has really left me shaken and sad.

I drove by here in a Taxi last week, to visit my mother. I hadn’t been out there in years, and when I saw all the new massive big-box stores and the suburban house developments, it literally made me ill.

I can’t write anything more about it.

Hebban olla vogala nestas hagunnan, hinase hic enda tu, wat unbidan we nu

In 2003, when the collected House ov Khan passed a motion to relocate our HQ to Haarlem, we did so with the intent of opening our community art/cafe space within the borders of the Koninkrijk der Nederlanden.

With only one EU citizenship between the lot of us, we were keenly aware of the legal issues involved with relocation. The Vreemdelingpolitie were previously responsible for handling of all permits related to residence, but Dutch Immigration and Integration Minister Rita Verdonk claimed late in 2003 that by transferring the process to her Immigratie-en Naturalisatiedienst (IND) department she could improve conditions for all involved. We took note of this, and watched.

However, a year later, Minister Verdonk and the IND came under investigation by the Justice Ministry for misleading city councils about residence permits and application forms, resulting only in a host of integration and technical issues that prevented the easy application and processing for newcomers to the kingdom. Minister Verdonk was given a deadline, and she assured Parliament that she would meet it. Again, we took note, planning for a 2005 post-deadline move.

Now six months past that deadline, Amsterdam City Council this week accused Verdonk of breaking her promise to resolve the issue, and is now investigating whether damage claims can be filed on behalf of mislead expats.

As of last July, there were almost sixty thousand outstanding residence permit applications, and IND is only now beginning to release over 75 documents each week. At that rate, it will take over a decade to clear the backlog.

The Dutch Association of Municipalities and the Dutch Association of Civil Affairs have sworn to see this resolved in a much more timely fashion. However, the only thing that is certain is that now is not a good time to be waiting for a permit in The Netherlands.

…

Here at House ov Khan, we are forced to deal with the harsh reality (heh heh heh) of the bureaucratic nightmare that IND has created.

Our plan is still the same: To move to The Kingdom of The Netherlands, and foster community space. It is very clear that this will not be happening in the current climate, however, as this backlog could possibly take a year or two to resolve.

In the interim, we are evaluating several options. None of these involve remaining in Ottawa.

We are looking at a variety of locations within our country’s borders and elsewhere in the world which will provide us with resources and experiences that we can use in achieving our goal. Any move we make from this point onwards will be a step forward. We will accept no less.

This change of status in NL does, however, have an upside.

Previously, due to the resources and related issues involved in a move to the NL (such as immigration processes for several kittens, business licenses, and so forth), the process was expected to take a long time. One (or several) of us were to head over as an advance party, while the rest stayed behind for a number of months to finalize the move from this side of the ocean.

Now that we no longer have to deal with these issues immediately, our move out of Ottawa will be hastened considerably.

Say your goodbyes now, friends and foes. We won’t be here much longer.

416

HOW ARE YOU GENTLEMEN

This is a friends-only post, to which everyone is allowed to read except Leslie Leslie, if you’re reading this because Josh (the jerk) forgot to log out, stop now.

Okay.

So — I’m putting together a collection for a Christmas/Solstice/Etc. gift for Leslie. As you may (or may not) remember, a year or two ago I put together a collection to pick her up an old digital camera, because she wanted to get into photography. We ended up getting an old Kodak, and many wonderful pictures were taken. Now, however, the camera is showing its age, and is rapidly approaching uselessness. This is what I’d like to get her:

A shiny new Coolpix 4500 (or a 995, if I can’t find a deal on a 4500), which is the undisputed king of macro photography. Which is really the kind of ography that Leslie wants to do. On the plus side, the camera also takes killer non-macro shots.
An also-shiny Cool Light SL-1, which attaches to the Coolpix (either model) for helping light macro subjects.
A 1-year Flickr account, so she has all the space in the world to upload/share/post photography, and a nice interface to do it with.

This is the plan. I understand that money is tight all over, so if you can’t contribute, no worries. If you can, that would be fan-fucking-tastic. There’s over a hundred and fifty people who have me on their friends list — even if 1/3rd of that number has an extra few dollars in their paypal account, that’d cover a large chunk of the expenses.

Also, you’d be making Leslie really, really happy. And you’ll have pretty pictures to look at, afterward.

If you can email me at jairus@gmail.com if you’re able to contribute (not any other email address, which she might accidentally open), it would be greatly, greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time.