SOME BELGIAN SCENERY.

While much of Flanders, Belgium's northern region, is rather boringly flat, there's some regions were a modest relief lends the landscape sometimes surprising grace and beauty. One such region is called the Heuvelland, in the south of the province of West Flanders. The photo shows the village of Loker with is typical steeple-less church (which reminds me of English countryside churches).




The slumped hill on the background is the Kemmelberg, a 156m high hilltop dominating the area. The pleasant scenery hides the fact that under it, there's a gigantic bunker complex built by the Belgian Army in the fifties. This command bunker was to be NATO's nerve center for the Benelux (Belgium-Netherlands-Luxemburg) in case of a Soviet invasion during the Cold War. It was in use till 1995, and is scheduled to open this very fall as a tourist attraction, much like the UK's underground facility in Troywood, Scotland.

As much as I like the Heuvelland (literally Hill Country), I still prefer the Ardennes for hiking, a favorite pastime on those rare occasions when there is time. Scheduled for this fall is a trek with some good friends in Belgium's "extreme" south, along the Semois river. For those who would like to check out the area, I recommend the places on this map.




The village of Poupehan.


MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT THIRD EYE BLIND, THE CHURCH.

Losing a whole year, a 1997 subhit from Third Eye Blind, from their titleless debut album.



After listening to their CD, I thought these guys were one of the most promising acts of 97. After that, never heard anything anymore.


Metropolis is a rather good number by The Church, an aussie new wave/rock band which saw the light in 1980 in Canberra. Their biggest hit was, of course, Under The Milky Way, from the album Starfish (1988). Metropolis is from the subsequent album, Gold Afternoon Fix (1990).




The video would be bearable were it not for the irritant drag. What do you want, it was shot in Euro Sin City aka Amsterdam (I hope there's no Dutch peeking in).


MFBB.

PREPARE FOR CIVIL WAR.

I reported earlier about the commotion around the headscarf ban imposed by an Antwerp High School, the Koninklijk Atheneum.

Since Tuesday, September 1, there have been angry protests from 150-200 muslim girls and their parents at the school gates. The girls that were willing to lay off their scarves upon entering were scolded and intimidated. Which is unbelievably ironic, since the protestors were toting a.o. placards reading "Vrije Keuze" (Free Choice). Keep in mind that it was EXACTLY the fact that non-veilwearing girls were pressed to cover up that led Karin Heremans, the Director of the Koninklijk Atheneum, to impose the ban, in a perhaps futile attempt to stop the islamic radicalization of her school.





And now this:

The entire week the muslim parents and their daughters have shouted slogans like "ALL FLEMINGS GET OUT!". I kid you not.

Of course, it don't make much difference - the percentage of muslim students at the Koninklijk Atheneum has risen from 48% in 2001 to 80% this year. Courtesy the socialist party.


More from the article. Keep in mind it's from De Standaard, a regime newspaper par excellence. If they print it...

"Heremans was given police protection last week. Just like in the days after the announcement of the headscarf ban at the end of June, there was also a police officer present on the school's grounds. Heremans' private house is also under police surveillance. Heremans, who has become the face of the headscarf ban, is especially disturbed by verbal threats on the street. Especially by older muslim men, she says."

If you need to order police officers to watch over schoolchildren, and a bodyguard for the school principal, you are in





MFBB.

SEPTEMBER 1, 1939. THE BATTLE OF WESTERPLATTE. THE START OF WORLD WAR II.

In late August, 1939, under the suspect pretense of an amiable courtesy visit, the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein dropped anchor in the channel off Westerplatte and on September 1, at exactly 04:45 local time, began it's barrage of the Polish outpost with its superior 280 and 150mm guns. Thus began Germany's invasion of Poland, igniting the powderkeg that would explode into World War II.

Expecting an easy victory, the German offensive was sternly repelled by Polish small arms and machine gun fire, and suffered unexpected losses during two more assaults upon Westerplatte the same day. The only Polish 75mm gun was destroyed after discharging 28 shells into the German position across the channel. Despite a German naval infantry invasion, sustained bombardment by heavy artillery and diving airraids from German warplanes, the Polish garrison repulsed the Germans for seven days, before the depleted unit, suffering from exhaustion, severe injury and a shortage of food, water, ammunition and medical supplies, was forced to surrender on September 7th.

Over the course of the violent engagement some 2,600 German soldiers fought against the 205-strong garrison of stalwart Poles. The exact number of German casualties has never been disclosed, but is assumed to be quite high in comparison to the Polish figures - of the 205 Polish soldiers defending the outpost, only 14 perished (including the Polish radio operator, later executed for refusing to divulge radio codes to the German side) while 53 were wounded...

The following video shows you how the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein shelled the small peninsula of Westerplatte and its handful of defenders. Despite the fireworks, despite the Stukas, despite repeated assaults by three thousand plus Germans... the barely two hundred Polish soldiers under Major Sucharski... held out for one week.




Thus started World War II. Seventy years ago.


MFBB.