The Royal Netherlands Embassy wrote today that General John J. Sheehan has apologized to former Dutch Chief of Defence General Van den Breemen about his remarks on March 18 that related the Srebrenica massacre to gays serving in the Dutch armed forces.

Sheehan, a former NATO commander who retired from the military in 1997, was speaking at a public hearing in the Senate Armed Services Committee in opposition to a proposal to allow gays to serve openly in the U.S. military. An opinion article in the Los Angeles Times by Borris Dittrich, Dutch born director of Human Rights Watch described the exchange:

Homosexuals in the Dutch military had depleted the forces' morale, he argued to the senators, and made them "ill-equipped to go to war." And that was in part why they failed to prevent Bosnian Serbs from massacring more than 8,000 civilians in the former haven of Srebrenica in July 1995.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) seemed incredulous at the testimony. "Did the Dutch leaders tell you it was because there were gay soldiers there?" he asked.

"Yes," Sheehan said. "They included that as part of the problem." He even claimed that the former Dutch commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force had told him this was true.

Earlier, Dutch prime minister Balkenende denounced the comments as “irresponsible” and said “these remarks should never have been made.” Ambassador Renée Jones-Bos issued a statement: "I heard the statements made by retired US General Sheehan in today's public hearing in the Senate Armed Services Committee, in which he suggests a causal relationship between gays serving in the Dutch military forces and the massacre of Srebrenica. I couldn't disagree more.

I take pride in the fact that lesbians and gays have served openly and with distinction in the Dutch military forces for decades, such as in Afghanistan at the moment.

The military mission of Dutch UN soldiers at Srebrenica has been exhaustively studied and evaluated, nationally and internationally. There is nothing in these reports that suggests any relationship between gays serving in the military and the mass murder of Bosnian Muslims."

In today's letter, Sheehan wrote: "I am sorry that my recent public recollection ... 15 years ago inaccurately reflected your thinking on some specific social issues in the military".

Gays have been allowed to serve in the Dutch army since 1974.

Sasha arrived late on Friday evening. Yesterday we visited a Dutch-American bakery and enjoyed a drive through rural New Jersey. On the way home we a hyacinth from a flower grower on the side of the road. Had a great day.

Today I'm planning two visits for my other website, one near New York and one near Philadelphia, so I'll be on the road.

The Washington Post writes today about an exhibition by Dutch designers Tejo Remy and René Veenhuizen in the Industry Gallery in Washington DC.

This is the first American solo exhibition for Mr. Remy, 20 years after he launched the radical idea of recycling-as-fine-design. Since 2000, all of Remy's works have been done in collaboration with Mr. Veenhuizen.

The Washington Post:

People often use words like "whimsical," "comic" or "witty" to describe the works of Remy and Veenhuizen, but the laughter they provoke is usually nervous, more like a response to Lenny Bruce than to Mickey Mouse. "For us, it's dead serious," Veenhuizen says, smiling. "It's not humor for humor's sake," says Remy, more soberly. "Good humor is very intellectual."

Almost all of us still associate design with "comfort" -- if not physical, then at least intellectual or aesthetic. Even if a Bauhaus armchair in chrome and leather may not be easy on the bottom, it is easy on the eyes and has such a get-able gestalt that we can learn to be at ease with it. Even most avant-garde designers have come up with new models for comfort and ease -- turning away from Victorian velvet-on-oak, for instance, to embrace Bauhaus, then Danish modern. What few designers have done is work to abolish comfort itself as a design principle, in favor of objects that disconcert. That's the Remy and Veenhuizen model.

Exhibition Tejo Remy & Rene Veenhuizen
March 20 through May 8
Industry Gallery, Washington, DC
http://www.industrygallerydc.com/Site/Upcoming.html

Image courtesy Industrial Gallery DC.

The Holland Museum in Holland, Michigan, houses an extensive collection of Dutch paintings. The Dutch Galleries of the Museum showcases many 17th to 20th century Dutch paintings and more than one hundred and seventy other cultural objects, from fine furniture, Delftware and silver to original Dutch costumes

Tomorrow, March 27th, two new paintings will added to the Galleries. One is a Willem Kalf kitchen still life, and the other is an untitled work, referred to internally as ‘The Drinking Man’, attributed to Adriaen Brouwer.

To celebrate the addition of the paintings a local author created a brief play inspired by these and other paintings in the Gallery. The play and “Dutch Art Comes Alive” event make up the ceremony around these two paintings being added to the gallery. The museum will have a a reception that day as well. Thea Grigsby, the Executive Director, is the resident Dutch art expert and will provide some insight into the paintings in the form of a short talk.

The Adriaen Brouwer was donated to the Museum by Eleanor DeKruif from Zeeland (wife of noted microbiologist Paul DeKruif); the Willem Kalf was donated by the Beekhuis Foundation. The paintings are not new to the museum -- the Adriaen Brouwer was donated in 1979 -- but this is the first time the works go on display.

Holland Museum
Holland, Michigan
http://hollandmuseum.org