Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Angry commuters
This morning as I sat in the train, minding my own business, a man sat across from me. Judging by his rather haggard look and tired eyes he was homeless. I recognized him from a previous encounter at the train station in The Hague when he asked me for a light (this was about 3 years ago when I still smoked). He gave me this story about how he was a homeless American and how he wanted some money so he could go to a shelter. I told him I knew who he was and that I'd met him before but that, unfortunately, I had no loose change to give to him. He got very angry with me, not that he shouted or anything, but he proceeded to stare at me for the next 10 minutes it took for me to get to my destination. He had real fire in his eyes, if looks could kill...
I should've sent the IND (the Dutch INS) people who were sitting a few seats away after him. If you travel at about the same time every day you start figuring out what everybody does, even if you don't speak to them. I don't think they would've done much about him, they have thousands of other illegals to deal with.
If you're looking for camel meat, I suggest you check out the south of Australia. Apparently about 60,000 camels are turning into a bit of a plague. They cause local farmers a lot of damage to their crops and drinking all the water which is supposed to be for the cattle. The department in charge of this kind of thing is planning to cull the number by several thousand. Some older articles about the subject can be found here and here.
I should've sent the IND (the Dutch INS) people who were sitting a few seats away after him. If you travel at about the same time every day you start figuring out what everybody does, even if you don't speak to them. I don't think they would've done much about him, they have thousands of other illegals to deal with.
If you're looking for camel meat, I suggest you check out the south of Australia. Apparently about 60,000 camels are turning into a bit of a plague. They cause local farmers a lot of damage to their crops and drinking all the water which is supposed to be for the cattle. The department in charge of this kind of thing is planning to cull the number by several thousand. Some older articles about the subject can be found here and here.
posted by Xander Soldaat at 08:12