Dare to be different and learn to be lonely

Okay, so: elections! This is a long text post, but with all that's going on in the world, I thought it would be good to write down how we do elections in the Netherlands.

Tomorrow I'm going to vote for a party that I want to be represented by in parliament. In the Netherlands we can choose between 24 (TWENTY FOUR!!) political parties, from conservatives (which we call liberals) to democrats (who call them selves liberals) to socialists (who are apparently called liberals in the USA) and many many in between (we have an animal party, a pirate party, a party for people who don't want to vote (sarcasm much), a senior citizen party, and so on and so on, 28 in total over all, but some parties are not on local lists)

There are 150 seats in parliament (Tweede Kamer, or the House of Representatives).
The party who gets the most votes will get the first chance to form a government and to do this they will work with as many parties as needed to get a majority in the House.
Currently we have a government of VVD (conservatives) plus PVDA (socialists), so all is not lost if the right wins ;-) Compromise is what our political system is all about.
The leader of the biggest party will become Prime Minister, the different minister posts will be divided over each party in the cabinet. (So for instance right now, we have a social minister for education and a conservative for housing, a social minister for finance, a conservative for defense, etc.)

According to the polls the conservative VVD will still be the biggest, but there is a extreme right wing politician who became very popular in the past year, who's right behind them. Fortunately the Green Left also has a lot of supporters and they too still have a good chance to gain a lot of seats.
Turn out for the most recent national elections was 75%, they're expecting a lot more people to vote this time, because it's such a close race. (there are 13 milion people with the right to vote)
In the Netherlands you are registered at birth and after you turn eighteen you will automatically get an invitation to vote for every election.
You also receive an example ballot with all the candidates and instructions, so you can study it at home. At the voting station there will be a huge poster with the ballot, so you have another chance to look at the names. We vote with a red pencil, filling the circle in front of the name of your candidate.

( Here's my example ballot and invitation )

I don't think it's a secret I will vote for the Green Left (litteral translation of the party's name:), the only choice I still have left to make is which candidate I'll give my preference to. I would usually vote for the first woman on the list (there are three parties with a woman in the top spot, for most of the major parties the number 2 is a woman, except for the Christian Right (SGP) who don't allow women on their list, well they do now, since they had to go to court over that and lost, but they don't have any eligible women on their list anyway).

BUT! Choosing number 2 will not result in more women in parliament, because candidates will get a seat based on their place on the list and the amount of votes the party gets. So number two on the list will definitely get in. This year there was a campaign explaining that in order to get more women in parliament, we should vote for a woman who is near the cut-off point of seats for their party and might not get in, unless she'd get preference votes. So I'm gonna try and find out who that would be for my party, based on the dreaded polls...

Why do I vote for a woman? Simple math, the group of candidates has 34% women and 66% men; I want our parliament to be representative of our population, so to restore balance, my preference vote goes to a woman.

Polling stations are open from 07:30 until 21:00, I'll go and vote after work, on my way home. For my own sanity I will try not to spend the evening watching the news;) Mom's coming over for dinner and I hope we will distract each other with chatting and DVDs...

It will be a stressful evening though.

(FYI: our conservatives are really not that conservative; issues like women's rights, gay marriage and healthcare for all are not up for debate to the point of fearing for our life. But the rise of the right is a cause for worry, especially for non white people. Let's hope enough lefties turn up to vote and even out the hate with sympathy at least...)

I will vote this evening on my way back from work: my polling station is located in the retirement home at the end of my street:)

Yesterday's political post

So. The Threesome Handbook. Y'all know why I bought that, don't you? Whatever you think: it honestly wasn't because of the subject. I would have bought Vicki Vantoch's book whatever it was about (with the exception maybe of gardening or golf;) because she happens to be a person that I'm interested in by proxy. *grins*

From my previous posts on the book, both written while I was reading it (about three way marriage in the Netherlands and using astrology to find a partner), you may have gotten the impression that I was disappointed. I am not!
The Threesome Handbook is an interesting and informative book, written in a fun style with loads of personal accounts of the good, the bad and the ugly sides of threesome relationships. I learned a lot. I was surprised there were more combinations of three people than I thought and it was a joy to be educated on the subject.
I can't even handle a relationship with one person, so I'm fascinated by people who are willing to open themselves up to others, and exponentially so by people who are able to share.

It's just that I was thrown off immediately in the introduction by the casual mentioning of a three way marriage in the Netherlands. Based on being Dutch, I knew that couldn't be true (and not because I hadn't heard of it;). It annoys me a lot when authors or editors offer that kind of argument and then fail to provide a source. I tried to let it go and read on, only to find another more specific mention on page 120:
( picture of page behind the cut )

Any Dutch person could tell you right away there is something wrong with this information. The names are obviously misspelled. And if one can't even get those right, what is the worth of the actual statement? Not satisfied with the lack of a source, I decided to do some research on my own, if only to check if I was right about marriage in the Netherlands always being between two people.

Now before I give you my findings, let me once again assure you that the book is awesome. This three-way-marriage issue is the ONLY verifiable news-item on the subject of threesomes mentioned in the book. The rest of the book is based on Vantoch's research amongst American threesomes and contains a lot of useful tips from several personal accounts. The only other actual-fact that's used for comparison is the 50% divorce rate for traditional marriages in the U.S., which I feel no need to dismiss, as I suspect that's pretty accurate.

I would also like to make clear that I don't attack out of spite. Even though my hopes were smashed after inititally being told that bisexual single women are the most desirable amongst threesomes. Apparently being a loner puts me on the list of 'people to avoid in three-ways' and my starsign is the only one that scores a measly 1 out of 4 on the threesome meter. Fuck. It's a good thing Capricorns don't believe in astrology.

( So here is the truth about marriage and civil unions in the Netherlands )

¹When judging my tone; be aware I'm a green, left-wing, feminist, bisexual and celebate woman. (If you need additional, possibly relevant information, ask! :-)

The Threesome Handbook by Vicki Vantoch is available at The Bookdepository