Bruges

Dear Commons Community,

Today is a travel day as Elaine and I leave Amsterdam to travel to Bruges, Belgium.  We will make a brief stop in Brussels.  We will come back to Amsterdam tomorrow night.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Elaine and I spent the morning at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam’s major art museum.   Since 1885, the museum has been housed in the elegant Rijksmuseum building, which was designed by the Dutch architect Pierre Cuypers. The collection offers an overview of Dutch art and history, including works by  Dutch masters such as Rembrandt, Vermeer, van Gogh, and Hals. I must say that it is the best organized museum in which I have ever been.  A number of its major works such as  Rembrandt’s The Night Watch and Johannes Vermeer’s The Milkmaid are located in a single central Gallery of Honour.  The Rijksmuseum also houses the Cuyper Library, a work of art in and of itself.

Below is a sample of the masterpieces we viewed.

Tony

Rembrandt – The Night Watch

Johannes Vermeer – The Milkmaid

Vincent van Gogh  – Self Portrait

Franz Hals – The Lovers

 Jan Asselijn – The Threatened Swan

Model of a late 17^th Century Warship (William Rex) by Adriaen de Vriend

The Cuyper Library

The Netherlands National Monument Commemorating the Country’s World War II  Dead

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday we took a walk to The Dam, Amsterdam’s main square. It is the location of the National Monument commemorating the country’s World War II  dead and several interesting buildings including the Royal Palace, the Magna Plaza, and De Nieuwe Kerk (The New Church.)  The National Monument carries an inscription in Latin:

Hic ubi cor patriae monumentum cordibus intus quod gestant cives spectet ad astra dei.

Translated:

“Here, where the heart of the fatherland is, may this monument, which citizens carry in their hearts, gaze at God’s stars.”

During our visit to The Dam, a group of about a dozen demonstrators were showing their support for Ukraine.  My wife engaged one of them in a brief conversation who indicated that they “hated” Trump.

As an aside, the most popular form of transportation in Amsterdam is the bicycle.  There are hundreds of them on almost every street.

Tony

Royal Palace

Showing Support for Ukraine

Magna Plaza (Former Main Post Office Converted in 1992 to a Shopping Mall)

Bicycles Everywhere

Dear Commons Community,

Elaine and I attended Palm Sunday Mass at the Church of Our Lady.  Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk (Church of Our Lady) (Syriac: ܥܕܬܐ ܕܝܠܕܬ ܐܠܗܐ , Ito dyoldath Aloho) is a Syriac Orthodox church in the center of Amsterdam. The church is used both by the Syriac Orthodox community and the Roman Catholic community of Opus Dei. The structure has the Dutch status of a Rijksmonument (National Heritage Site).

The church was founded in 1854 by the Redemptorist Fathers and was designed by architect Theo Molkenboer. In 1985 the Redemptorists left the church due to the lack of redemptorist priests. The church was acquired by the Syriac Orthodox Church of the Netherlands and the parish was renamed Moeder Godskerk (Church of the Mother of God). However, the church never closed its doors for the Roman and Surinam Catholic believers.

Elaine and I decided to attend mass here because it was being said in English.  It was a beautiful service with lots of music and singing.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

On September 3, 1944, Anne Frank and her family were deported from the Westerbork concentration camp to Auschwitz. Of the four members of the Frank family, only Otto Frank survived. But through her diary, Anne became the voice of the one million Jewish children who were murdered in the Holocaust.  There is an incredible museum in Amsterdam dedicated to the Frank family that includes the house in which they hid from Nazis from 1942 through 1944.  We toured the museum this morning and it leaves a pit in your stomach looking  at remains (desk, makeshift kitchen, toilet) of their Secret Annex.   The most poignant was the actual bookcase that provided the entrance to the Annex. The Franks hid in the  Annex for over 2 years, with the Van Pels family and Fritz Pfeffer.  They maintained their secrecy with the help of Victor Kugler, Johannes Kleiman, John and Bep Voskuijl, and Miep and Jan Gies.

Everyone should visit this shrine at least once in their lifetime.

Tony

Otto, Edith, Margot, and Anne Frank

Westerkerk, located footsteps from the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, is a 17th-century Protestant church and the largest of its kind in the Netherlands.

Dear Commons Community,

Last night, Elaine and I had dinner at Bleu, a quaint little restaurant about a ten-minute walk from where we are staying in Jordaan.  Afterwards we took a stroll along one of the many canals in this part of Amsterdam.   

Fine evening!

Tony

Bleu Restaurant

Main Entrance to Sebastian’s

Dear Commons Community,

Elaine and I arrived safely in Amsterdam.  We are staying at Sebastian’s which is located in Jordaan, just outside of the old center of Amsterdam. It is noted for the eleven canals that crisscross the area.  It was also the home of Rembrandt who, after he went bankrupt in 1655,  moved into a rented house on the Rozengracht in the Jordaan, where he lived until he died in 1669.

Tony

The view from our hotel room.

Sebastian’s Bar

Dear Commons Community,

My wife, Elaine and I, will be leaving for Amsterdam this evening on vacation.  We will be spending about a week touring parts of The Netherlands and Belgium.  Assuming we have safe travels, we should arrive about 9:00 am tomorrow morning.

Tot morgen!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Trump’s abrupt reversal on the aggressive global tariffs he announced a week ago left critics shaking their heads after the turmoil rattled financial markets and increased the likelihood of an economic recession.  As reported by The Huffington Post.

“This is chaos. This is government by chaos,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said at a press conference on Wednesday. “He keeps changing things from day to day. His advisors are fighting among themselves. You cannot run a country with such chaos.”

“This chaos seems just a game for Donald Trump, but it is very real for people’s lives, people’s retirement, their income,” he added. “Trump seems to be playing a game of red light, green light. One day this, one day that. I’ve never seen such a chaotic administration action.”

Trump announced on his social media platform Truth Social that he is reducing tariffs on all countries to 10% for 90 days, rather than keeping the higher rates he announced last week. However, he said, China’s exports to the U.S. would now see a 125% tariff.

“At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable,” Trump posted Wednesday afternoon.

U.S. financial markets rallied immediately on the news, erasing much of their losses from last week. Republican lawmakers and allies of Trump also welcomed the reversal, including some who had expressed concerns with the president’s strategy and its negative impact on the economy.

“This is the right decision,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) wrote in a social media post. “We should focus on holding Communist China accountable for its IP theft, currency manipulation, and unfair trade practices.”

Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, a Trump ally, wrote that the president had “brilliantly executed” his tariff policies. Earlier on Wednesday, Ackman had warned that “many small businesses will go bankrupt” if Trump continued course.

But Schumer, a longtime China hawk, said it would be difficult to undo the damage caused by Trump’s trade policies. He warned that the remaining universal 10% tariffs would raise prices for consumers and questioned how targeting U.S. allies would help in confronting Ch

“When you have a tariff strategy, it needs to be pinpointed and focused,” Schumer said Wednesday.

“Trump has created a situation where the whole world is against us, and everyone is furious at America,” he added. “The only way you can bring China to be fairer is by creating alliances and having the world focused on China, instead of the whole world angry at America.”

Tony

Elon Musk and Peter Navarro

Dear Commons Community,

Elon Musk took another swipe at Trump’s senior trade adviser Peter Navarro yesterday, calling him “truly a moron” on social media as the Tesla CEO further splits from the White House’s tariffs plan.

Musk’s remarks were in response to a CNBC interview with Navarro that aired Monday, during which the White House trade adviser discussed how Tesla’s position as a “car assembler” rather than a car manufacturer could be at odds with Trump’s tariff policies. The comments come as Trump announced widespread tariffs on a swath of countries, causing market volatility and likely increasing the cost of cars by thousands of dollars.  As reported by CNN.

“In many cases, if you go to his Texas plant, a good part of the engines that he gets, which in the EV case are the batteries, come from Japan and come from China. The electronics come from Taiwan,” Navarro said.

“The difference is, in our thinking and Elon’s on this, is that we want the tires made in Akron,” he continued. “We want the transmissions made in Indianapolis. We want the engines made in Flint and Saginaw. And we want the cars manufactured here.”

Musk said Navarro “is truly a moron” in an X post replying to a video of the comments being shared on the social media platform. “What he says here is demonstrably false,” he wrote, before calling Navarro “Peter Retarrdo” in another derogatory comment.

Musk claimed “Tesla has the most American-made cars,” in another series of X posts, adding that “Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks.”

“By any definition whatsoever, Tesla is the most vertically integrated auto manufacturer in America with the highest percentage of US content. Navarro should ask the fake expert he invented, Ron Vara,” he added.

Tesla has dominated Cars.com’s American-Made Index since 2021, based on criteria including assembly location, where the parts are made, engine origin, transmission origin and US manufacturing workforce. Still, Tesla isn’t immune to tariffs, a reality that Musk has acknowledged.

“The tariff impact on Tesla is still significant,” he wrote on X last month.

Musk’s Tuesday remarks come after he posted, and then deleted, a comment saying Navarro’s PhD from Harvard is a “bad thing,” and that he hasn’t “built sh*t.”

Navarro dismissed concerns over a clash with Musk on Monday, saying “everything is good with Elon, no problem.” when speaking to CNBC.

Musk has also diverged with Trump on tariffs, posting videos about free trade and saying at an Italian event he believes there should be zero tariffs between the US and Europe. The Washington Post reported Monday that Musk also made a “direct appeal” to Trump.

It’s not the first time Musk has disagreed with Trump on a policy or personnel pick. But the split over tariffs is one of the more significant differences in perspective between the president and his biggest booster and top adviser.

The White House for its part, is shrugging off Musk’s comments.

“These are obviously two individuals who have very different views on trade and on tariffs. Boys will be boys and we will let their public sparring continue,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a press briefing on yesterday. 

Dear Karoline, tell Trump, in case neither of you know it, Elon and Peter are playing with the entire American economy at stake.  It is not simply “boys being boys.”

Tony