Are you getting much coverage of the latest MWWW (Missing White Woman of the Week)? Obligatory Link
There is nothing much good to say about it, but this father, Paul Van Der Sloot (and his son) seems like a real tool.
There have been stories that the guy is a notorious gambler and all-around scummy character. He is apparantly in Aruba “training” to be a judge.
Frankly, it smells like this guy was politicaly connected but too unstable to keep around the locals, so he was shipped off to Aruba. Are my assumptions close to true or is this story a non-issue in Holland?
Also, why do you call yourselves so many different things?
Here in New York we’ve got lots of Dutch names (and corruptions thereof) for everything. I think I’m going to petition the City Council to rename my street Van der Sloot Avenue.
Hi, Lamar Mundane,
Thanks for the link. There’s more info in it than we get to see or hear.
It’s been mentioned on the news.
Also, I believe the father, the judge, was interviewed by Dutch TV.
I didn’t see it, but I heard he said he believed his son to be innocent. But he would say that, right?
You said
Do you mean the son is a gambler, etc., or his father?
No, it’s not a big issue here.
I’m sorry.
It must be devastating for the girl’s parents, though.
I’ll be thinking of them and I hope they catch the bastard - or the bastard confesses.
What do you mean “why do you call yourselves so many different things?” heh. Like Dutch, Netherlands, Holland, etc?
Ask the Brits.
They called us ‘Dutch’ somewhere in the 17th century, I believe. It stuck.
We call ourself ‘Netherlanders’ or sometimes ‘Hollanders’.
friedo, ‘van der Sloot’ means, translated: ‘from the ditch’.
Still like it?
There have been stories that the guy is a notorious gambler and all-around scummy character. He is apparantly in Aruba “training” to be a judge.
Frankly, it smells like this guy was politicaly connected but too unstable to keep around the locals, so he was shipped off to Aruba. Are my assumptions close to true or is this story a non-issue in Holland?
Also, why do you call yourselves so many different things?
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We do get coverage, I saw an interview with the mother not long ago. I’d say our general reactions are the typical ones:
American press try to make huge stories out of everything
American tv audience are apparently fond of fiction
Dutch tv audience are, comparatively, fond of facts, and typically only interested whenever new facts surface.
Of course there are exceptions on both sides, but I’d say that’s the general impression.
How does the drunk gambling politically appointed judge in Aruba differ from drunk gambling politically appoinred Judges in, say, the USA?
And why all the publicity for this MWWW? Dozens are killed every week in the USA without nuch fanfare, but have one go misssing in some dern ferrin place and the hyenas come out to play.
I think our public may be fairly similar in that respect. rankly, I’ve never met anyone who was all that interested in the TV hoopla about MWWW. But TV reporters are like sharks, swarming bloodthirty sharks. And they’ll do anything for a story, even manufacture one.
But still, you watch almost twice as much tv on average and newschannels seem to be very popular. They tried to have one newschannel here, but it didn’t work.
Of course, we could just be lagging behind … hours spent behind the tv have been steadily rising. Though now the internet is starting to take an increasingly substantial bite out of that (almost everyone has internet now).
Speak for your self, Gum. I would never ever call myself “Hollander”.
Pookah the Limburger
And I haven’t heard about this story at all. I don’t live in Holland (Yes, I do call it that. In English it’s okay. It’s complicated.) anymore, but if anything huge hits I will usually have the scoop from friends and family so I don’t reckon this is huge news unless I’m just delayed.
Getting to report on location in an exotic tropical locale beats reporting on location from the boring, dangerous locations where most killings take place
The element of suspense. Will she be found or won’t she? Who will be revealed as the killer? Most killings in the US are more cut-and-dried. “We were drinking with our friends, that asshole started a fight with me, I killed him.”
The your-daughter-takes-a-trip-and-vanishes angle resonates with all the parents who are nervous about their kids leaving home for trips or college or whatever
A complete lack of moral ambiguity. Big news stories tend to cover matters that can get people, such as media consumers, upset: the war in Iraq, same-sex marriage, political fights, etc. People might start arguing with their friends and families or turn off the news or write angry letters over these issues. Who’s going to claim that teenaged vacationers should vanish?
