By Jennifer Pompe & Quynh Nguyen

© Quynh Nguyen, Jennifer Pompe; Jim has almost seen every place, but Berlin is still on his bucket list.

“I pick up friends and let them go”

Born in Egypt and having lived in several different places, amongst them Singapore, Hong Kong, New York City, San Francisco, and more, made him more outgoing to strangers but also less attached to people. He didn’t get the opportunity to build strong relationships apart from his wife.

  “ My parents flew around the world”

Within 12 years only Jim visited 13 different primary schools. Then, as a teenager he was put in a boarding school by his parents in the East side of England. But Jim is very laid-back about it and refers to himself as a ‘gipsy’.

 “ I did the same to my children”

Moving a lot as a child himself, he continued this family tradition with his own children. When he asked his daughter if she’d like to take a gap year after graduating from university, she simply said: “ Why? I’ve been everywhere. Why should I travel around the world?”

 “ Paris is boring and London is dirty”

Jim lived in Rotterdam for 12 years. There, he worked for Unilever, a British-Dutch consumer goods company. Because of that, his Dutch is ‘uitstekend’, Dutch for excellent.Nevertheless, whenever he wants to order in a Dutch restaurant, they don’t serve him right away because he sounds like a German speaking Dutch, he jokes.

The reason for it could be that Jim also speaks a bit of German. Besides that, he is fluent in French but he is not really impressed by Paris. The same goes for London. One of his favourite places in the world is Buenos Aires because it’s not as dangerous as other Latin American countries.Even after Jim retired from Unilever, he decided to consult other companies in that field and keeps on travelling because of that.

You will follow the lives of several high school students for about one week. In that week they will have to fasten for Ramadan and prepare for the most important American Football game in their life. But please do not consider this a sports movie. See this as a documentary about Muslim American culture, where on occasion you will get to see some Football. With emphasis on the ‘some’.

Because when you are not watching the most enjoyable part of the film: watching the Muslim-American high-school kids go through the fastening, but still having the ability to catch and throw a ball, you will be informed on the racism that Muslims have to endure after the events of 9/11. This whole section of the film, which drags on way too long, is only interesting if you have been living under a rock for the past ten years. Or when you live in Texas.

You will not only see the boys do their Islamic prayer before the game begins, but also how they interact with their family and friends. You do get to see that these kids are just as normal as any other American, which is the main point of the whole film. But even during these parts of the movie, you are very aware of the fact that there is a big camera crew following these people. This does not have to be a bad thing, but the kids and even the parents come of as very artificial and fake. You can easily notice that they are not yet comfortable with the cameras, which translates to the big screen.

But there are some real moments in there and they will even give you an occasional laugh. Like the biggest Fordson fan who wants to see Osama Bin Laden killed on national television or when the guys are discussing what kind of junk-food they are craving the most. In these moments you get to see how normal these kids are, arguing if they want to eat a Snicker ice cream or something else. Too bad these great documentary moments can be counted on one hand.

On to another problem that this movie stumbles into: it tries to do and cover too much. The movie takes too many different directions while it would have been better of if it stayed on the movies biggest drawing point: Football players fasting for Ramadan. But director Rashid Ghazi (a marketing man with no experience in film-making) completely loses focus and even the chronological order is sometimes nowhere to be found. Something that seems very odd for a documentary that is filmed in less then three weeks.

But there is some Football and stereotypical coaches to be found for the “true American” viewers and the rest to enjoy. But even when the film finally reaches the climax, the game against rivals Dearborn High, it doesn’t reach it’s potential. Firstly, I would have liked a little more history about the rival teams. I need more reasons on why these two schools are rivals then the superficial ‘the rich against the poor school’.

Secondly, as a viewer you seem to have formed no bond with the Fordson players and you start asking yourself: maybe the other team should win, they look like nice guys. You have failed as an American Football movie if this happens. Of course this is not a sports movie but a documentary. But the documentary needed to be saved by some Football to be worth watching as a film. Third and last point: the actual final game is hard to watch and to understand. Only hardcore American Football fans will have an idea of the score. I won’t spoil the ending, but is it fun to watch? Not really.

Fordson starts out with a great set-up and supposedly fun characters, but it suffers from way too many faults for it to become an enjoyable documentary. There is not enough Football, not enough real or heart-warming moments and sometimes no chronological order. The film will mainly show you the normal patriotic Americans that we, Europeans ‘are so fond of’. But this time, they pray to Allah before they throw the ball into the air with the waving American flag on the background and someone saying that you are the luckiest man alive when you are born in the USA.

2 out of 5 stars

The world biggest tattoo Museum and it’s right here in Amsterdam! Founded by tattoo artist Henk Schiffmacher. Watch the video if you want to see more of this extraordinary Museum.

The Occupy movement of Amsterdam. It has been covered by the media in every possible way, but never like this! 

“Around 50% of our food ends up in the garbage “, says Lucas Fischer, a third year Food Management and Culinaristic student from the DHBW Mosbach, Germany. During his studies in the fields of business, commodity economics and nutrition science, together with topics like cultural and ethical aspects, he learns how to handle the issue of food waste and behaviour. As food manager-to-be, he works not only on the causes, but also on new solutions to solve this problem.

“In cultural science workshops we learn the relationship between the human being and the food based on the history of nutrition”, says Fischer. “Over the years, the oversupply of food in the industrial countries leads to a shift of the consumer behaviour. The availability of food at every time of the year is not only taken for granted, but also demanded. Food is only a good, not a resource to survive anymore. In today’s fast-moving society is food in the eyes of many people just an energy-supplier. The fact, that almost a half of the food waste from households is raw (WRAP, L. V. (2008 ). Food Waste Report. London: WRAP.), shows that alone through a better time- and purchase-planning an immensely amount of food waste could be saved. “

Fischer knows, that “many consumers don’t care about their food or are not well-informed about the perishability of their food. For a lot of people groceries are inedible one day after the best-before day. A clarification of the consumers is here useful and necessary. “

“There are quite a few initiatives, political and personal based, with the goal of reducing food waste. The presence of this issue in the media increased not least because of the discussion about the best-before date. More clarification of the publicity is certainly a key for damming the food waste”, says Fischer. Furthermore he mentions that a clarified consumer is not only able making better decision between expired and still edible food, but also will develop a better relationship to his food. “A discussion in the public is the first step of the explanatory work, which should be done in this field.”

In Fischer’s opinion should this be possible, because the trend in the matter of food is obvious functional food. He knows that leading companies working at the moment on new solutions, which will give the food added values. “If we sharpen the sense of the consumers in general, we probably can do something against the food waste.”

The protesters in New York and later in other cities, came from all backgrounds, colours and believes. Normal people. People on who the financial crisis had a serious effect. They either lost their houses, their jobs or even their families and now came together to stand up as the 99% against the 1%.

In other cities the sympathisers chose the same name for their protests and soon Occupy Los Angeles, Occupy San Francisco, Occupy Aspen and many others were born. A serious movement emerged and it would soon go global.

The so-called 1% did not seem to care so much. Footage of protesters at Wall Street showed bankers on the balcony, sarcastically toasting their foaming champagne glasses, laughing and having a great time.

For many people in the Netherlands it was the first time to hear about Occupy when on the 15^th of October the movement set sail for Europe. 1500 people came to Amsterdam that day and now, five days later, protesters are still camping in front of the Amsterdam stock exchange. At least 100 tents stand side to side on Het Beursplein and more people are coming.

But in Amsterdam the die-hard crew is certainly different from New York. These are not the people that lost their jobs, not the homeless because of the crisis or the once who lost their families for economical reasons. Here we see the usual suspects. Young people with long hair, even younger people with dreaded hair and baggy trousers and Southern Europeans who came rolling out of a squatter house in the city. Among these young people there are the lost ones. The protesters of the sixties. Middle aged men and woman with the effect of heavy smoking engraved in their skins, walking through the campsite with a recovered pride on their faces.

But although the crowd is different, they surely are as persistent. They are on a mission. But what mission?

A problem well known to all Occupy movements is that every single soul on the battlefield has a different reason for being there. There is no leader, no shared ideology, nothing to fall back on if you don’t know the answer to a journalist’s question. A professional protester knows that this is a thing to avoid when you stand up against something serious, but it seems Occupy started a bit too spontaneous to have a holistic vision that tackles these beginners’ mistakes.

They grew sympathy at first. Their general goal was one many could relate too. Maybe it was even appealing for a second. But what their lack of leadership will do to their credibility and thus their backup from society is yet to be discovered.

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Now that the basic need was settled down, we started to gain knowledge and began to use technique to develop ourselves. Resulting in what we experience nowadays. In everyday culture agriculture plays his own role. Human’s could not ignore agriculture since they were in close connection to it. There wasn’t even a opportunity to be far away from certain area’s were food was grown. One of the consequences of being far away could be starvation.

Nowadays we almost forget about this fundamental need. We are now that far away from food that we need the technologies to store and transfer food. The connection of some people with food is minimum and by these people the importance of agriculture is sometimes overlooked, even though it is an everyday need to eat and drink.

In contrast to the respect that we had for food in the past, we nowadays deal with food insecurity. Even though, we notice a huge different in parts of the world for the amount of food we have available. In 88 countries a population of 800 million people worldwide suffer from deficient diets.

In addition we could say that agriculture is still important, but on the other hand transportation and storage have become even more important. Why? Basically because the population of people is growing worldwide. The ‘Population Reference Bureau’ indicates that a number of 250.000 people are added every day to the estimated 6.9 billion.

Fertile land is crucial for growing types of food like grain and rice or can be used to let animals graze on it. But even though there is hunger and this fertile land is more scarce than ever,  the western world uses large areas of this fertile land to grow flower bulbs. As long as there is money in growing flower bulbs, people will continue.

Besides that, we haven’t even spoken about the food that is wasted by people. A British study determined that 6.7 tons of food, or about one third of the food brought, is thrown out in the United Kingdom every year. This could be an example of the difference that we face in the way we respect food nowadays compared to the past. Where farmers have to work hard to get the food in high quality, others just throw it away like it is nothing.

By Bart Weel

By Levi Blokdijk, Sjoerd Sloetjes & Rufus Baas

“The opening hours had always been from ten in the morning ‘til two in the night. Now we have to close at ten in the evening because of the forced separation of video backrooms and shop floor,” tells Eddy. “The backrooms were never the main source of income for the erotica shops in Amsterdam, but they were the reason we could stay open longer than other shops.”

The opening hours provided the Red-light district shops a major advantage over other shops. “People would come to Amsterdam, go into town, do some shopping, have a few beers, and then they’d come to the Red-light district and drink some more. A lot of people would walk around and notice that the shops were still open and come in. After ten was prime time for erotica shop owners.”

Eddy proceeds to explain how shop owners could create an extra entrance for their pornographic video booths and thus be allowed to keep their backrooms open after the actual shop itself had closed. “The shop owners could separate the two components, but the truth is that the backrooms are hardly used now. Years earlier it was different, but because of the Internet most people don’t need to come in here to watch some porno.”

“The only people who come into the shop to watch videos are older men, often religious, who aren’t allowed to own porno or watch it at home. Some of them are afraid of their wives finding out about their collection, and others just don’t knowhow to obtain hard-core porn material. Most of the rental customers are regulars.”Children who have been brought up around VHS, DVD’s, and the Internet have no reason to frequent a Red-light backroom.

The separation of shop and video booths would prove to be fruitless. The change would cost extra money, and as Eddy explained, there would be hardly any extra income generated because of the lack of interest in video booths in these modern times. “Eventually the booths will close down, when all the old folks have lost interest. I don’t think there will be a new generation of porno renters.”

By Levi Blokdijk, Sjoerd Sloetjes & Rufus Baas