Hi. Welcome to the blog for my IB English B class at Jur Hronec High School in Bratislava, Slovakia. Below you will find links to other websites and discussion questions. My students are required to comment on one of these postings every month and also respond to each other's comments. Feel free to add your two bits, but be aware that all comments are monitored before being posted.
This is the
last entry you can comment on for the month of February.
Should
Rotterdam allow their historic bridge to be temporarily dismantled?Is this protest simply motivated by hatred for
the very rich?Would you be out there
throwing eggs?
The Koningshavenbrug bridge is an officially protected landmark, and a relic of the bombardment of Rotterdam, there is no doubt about that. However, unless the temporary, partial dismantlement of it poses high risks of damaging it permanently, and/or it causes traffic management trouble (e.g., disables a busy water-crossing point), the city of Rotterdam should not have a major problem with it. Although rather inconvenient and unorthodox for the average person, to get a part of a historical bridge dismantled for the sake of your 400 million Y721 superyacht, Jeff Bezos will cover the costs to make up for it. Some may call it terrible planning or complete ignorance, having the yacht built in the Oceano shipyard in Alblasserdam, knowing very well that it will have to pass this bridge in order to reach the ocean. Nevertheless, this article was, from my observations, written to further fuel the hate-train heading Bezos’ way.
I understand trying to get an exciting headline, but this is a perfect, carefully-crafted example of a tabloid doing its best to rile up the public in order to get a few extra clicks. I say carefully-crafted, as it mentions all the necessary information, but spaces it out in a way where the majority of the readers, who actually do not finish the whole article(s) or, even worse, read just the headline, get a much worse narrative against Bezos than those few who read the whole thing. The authors threw a lot of, what feels like, filler information before the significant objective facts, many of which were kept specifically for the last few parts. By this I mean referencing the Facebook event multiple times, and going into unimportant details for shock value (“Mr Strörmann has even linked to a video tutorial for making a 'cardboard egg-grenade launcher' on the page 'for the advanced egg throwers'.” ; “Comments on the event discussion board have ranged, with one calling for people to bring a 'paper bag filled with poop' and others denouncing the idea.”), when it could have just been done in one or two sentences. On the contrary, points which could somewhat justify Bezos’ actions, such as, the severity of the dismantlement, the estimated bridge outage, or the fact that it has been dismantled many times before (so it is not a special request specifically from Bezos), are overshadowed and hidden away either in the middle or the end of the article. They even somehow mention Elon Musk in the very last two sentences, who is completely irrelevant in this scenario, likely to have another buzzword to appeal to Google’s SEO Ranking (search result optimization).
While I cannot see into people’s heads directly, what I can say is that this protest is certainly more significant because it involves an already-despised multi billionaire. According to the article, there has been resistance from locals against the demolition of the bridge in 1993, but we are not talking about destroying something here. I do not necessarily agree with Bezos’ request, but it definitely should not have been blown out of proportion as much as it was, and, in my opinion, both sides should have been somewhat equally represented in the article.
Martin, while I agree with some of your takes on this article, there are a few points with which I have to disagree. Firstly, in my opinion, the fact that there where previous attempts to demolish the bridge is irrelevant in this case, as I think this article deals with a different problem here than whether it is right to dismantle a bridge or not, or whether it would be easy to do so or not. It deals with an issue, whether the officials are going to allow the dismantlement of a historical bridge because Jeff Bezos paid a lot of money to do so, whether the government is going to bend its vows of “let’s not dismantle the bridge again” from 2017, so that a 17ft meaningless superyacht can pass through. In addition, you mentioned that Bezos will cover the costs of the dismantlement, but I do not think it matters that he plans to do so, nor the fact that the dismantlement shouldn’t pose a problem for the people of Rotterdam. It is about a principle – Are we going to allow people who have money to do as they please? Will this be a new normal where values and vows are ignored because of money? I also don’t think that this protest is motivated mostly by the hate that people feel for Jeff Bezos, although I agree with your statement that it could play a part in the amount of news coverage this protest got. I believe that people would be against such measures even if the person in question would be someone else. Furthermore, maybe it’s more about the object than the person, as the usage of the superyacht is convenient only for Bezos and perhaps his close acquaintances. I can also see your point that Bezos’ side was not represented in this article as the side of Rotterdam workers and people was, but what would his side be? Would he try to defend the usage of this superyacht knowing that there is no bigger benefit coming out of building it? I believe Bezos would provide his side if he knew that his reasoning would justify his actions.
While I think that Jeff Bezos has done some good things for our society and certainly has not done anything for me, personally, to despise him, I can see why his actions regarding the dismantlement of a historical bridge in Rotterdam provoked a negative response of the local people. I do not think that people would be as furious as they are right now, if the bridge was going to be temporarily taken apart because of a reason different than a 17ft superyacht, which serves no other purpose than provide Bezos entertainment. Moreover, I truly believe that if the reason for the dismantlement of Koningshavenbrug bridge was to be something with beneficial value for more than one billionaire, the people of Ablasserdam would not be as opposed to it as they are now. Even though I think that spending 400 million $ on a yacht is an enormous waste of money, I won’t judge Jeff Bezos for spending his own money on things however pointless they might seem to me. Having said that, this applies until his purchases create problems for those around him and he explicitly starts solving these problems by bending the established vows from 2017, vows of never dismantling the bridge again, with money. It is a valid reason for people’s fury – why should Bezos’ demands be regarded differently? Do these vows simply disappear because of his money?
In addition, I don’t think people realize that the yacht is twice the size of a regular flat in Slovakia. Again, its size serves no other purpose and because of it, the yacht even leaves an enormous carbon footprint when used. In my opinion, this yacht should not be the reason for a historical bridge to be dismantled, nor any historical monument to be tampered with for that matter. In fact, this yacht should not have received the permit to be built in the first place.
All in all, I hope that those 900 hundred and more people won’t come throw those eggs at Bezos’ yacht, as I myself would not do nor promote such thing. I also don’t encourage the behavior of Mr.Stormann, whose tutorials spread unnecessary violent actions. Nevertheless, even though this protest may be “a bridge too far”, as Stephan Leewis has stated, let this be an example that the influence of money has its limits and people demand equitable treatment.
The Koningshavenbrug bridge is an officially protected landmark, and a relic of the bombardment of Rotterdam, there is no doubt about that. However, unless the temporary, partial dismantlement of it poses high risks of damaging it permanently, and/or it causes traffic management trouble (e.g., disables a busy water-crossing point), the city of Rotterdam should not have a major problem with it. Although rather inconvenient and unorthodox for the average person, to get a part of a historical bridge dismantled for the sake of your 400 million Y721 superyacht, Jeff Bezos will cover the costs to make up for it. Some may call it terrible planning or complete ignorance, having the yacht built in the Oceano shipyard in Alblasserdam, knowing very well that it will have to pass this bridge in order to reach the ocean. Nevertheless, this article was, from my observations, written to further fuel the hate-train heading Bezos’ way.
ReplyDeleteI understand trying to get an exciting headline, but this is a perfect, carefully-crafted example of a tabloid doing its best to rile up the public in order to get a few extra clicks. I say carefully-crafted, as it mentions all the necessary information, but spaces it out in a way where the majority of the readers, who actually do not finish the whole article(s) or, even worse, read just the headline, get a much worse narrative against Bezos than those few who read the whole thing. The authors threw a lot of, what feels like, filler information before the significant objective facts, many of which were kept specifically for the last few parts. By this I mean referencing the Facebook event multiple times, and going into unimportant details for shock value (“Mr Strörmann has even linked to a video tutorial for making a 'cardboard egg-grenade launcher' on the page 'for the advanced egg throwers'.” ; “Comments on the event discussion board have ranged, with one calling for people to bring a 'paper bag filled with poop' and others denouncing the idea.”), when it could have just been done in one or two sentences. On the contrary, points which could somewhat justify Bezos’ actions, such as, the severity of the dismantlement, the estimated bridge outage, or the fact that it has been dismantled many times before (so it is not a special request specifically from Bezos), are overshadowed and hidden away either in the middle or the end of the article. They even somehow mention Elon Musk in the very last two sentences, who is completely irrelevant in this scenario, likely to have another buzzword to appeal to Google’s SEO Ranking (search result optimization).
While I cannot see into people’s heads directly, what I can say is that this protest is certainly more significant because it involves an already-despised multi billionaire. According to the article, there has been resistance from locals against the demolition of the bridge in 1993, but we are not talking about destroying something here. I do not necessarily agree with Bezos’ request, but it definitely should not have been blown out of proportion as much as it was, and, in my opinion, both sides should have been somewhat equally represented in the article.
- Martin
Martin, while I agree with some of your takes on this article, there are a few points with which I have to disagree. Firstly, in my opinion, the fact that there where previous attempts to demolish the bridge is irrelevant in this case, as I think this article deals with a different problem here than whether it is right to dismantle a bridge or not, or whether it would be easy to do so or not. It deals with an issue, whether the officials are going to allow the dismantlement of a historical bridge because Jeff Bezos paid a lot of money to do so, whether the government is going to bend its vows of “let’s not dismantle the bridge again” from 2017, so that a 17ft meaningless superyacht can pass through.
DeleteIn addition, you mentioned that Bezos will cover the costs of the dismantlement, but I do not think it matters that he plans to do so, nor the fact that the dismantlement shouldn’t pose a problem for the people of Rotterdam. It is about a principle – Are we going to allow people who have money to do as they please? Will this be a new normal where values and vows are ignored because of money?
I also don’t think that this protest is motivated mostly by the hate that people feel for Jeff Bezos, although I agree with your statement that it could play a part in the amount of news coverage this protest got. I believe that people would be against such measures even if the person in question would be someone else. Furthermore, maybe it’s more about the object than the person, as the usage of the superyacht is convenient only for Bezos and perhaps his close acquaintances.
I can also see your point that Bezos’ side was not represented in this article as the side of Rotterdam workers and people was, but what would his side be? Would he try to defend the usage of this superyacht knowing that there is no bigger benefit coming out of building it? I believe Bezos would provide his side if he knew that his reasoning would justify his actions.
While I think that Jeff Bezos has done some good things for our society and certainly has not done anything for me, personally, to despise him, I can see why his actions regarding the dismantlement of a historical bridge in Rotterdam provoked a negative response of the local people. I do not think that people would be as furious as they are right now, if the bridge was going to be temporarily taken apart because of a reason different than a 17ft superyacht, which serves no other purpose than provide Bezos entertainment. Moreover, I truly believe that if the reason for the dismantlement of Koningshavenbrug bridge was to be something with beneficial value for more than one billionaire, the people of Ablasserdam would not be as opposed to it as they are now. Even though I think that spending 400 million $ on a yacht is an enormous waste of money, I won’t judge Jeff Bezos for spending his own money on things however pointless they might seem to me. Having said that, this applies until his purchases create problems for those around him and he explicitly starts solving these problems by bending the established vows from 2017, vows of never dismantling the bridge again, with money. It is a valid reason for people’s fury – why should Bezos’ demands be regarded differently? Do these vows simply disappear because of his money?
ReplyDeleteIn addition, I don’t think people realize that the yacht is twice the size of a regular flat in Slovakia. Again, its size serves no other purpose and because of it, the yacht even leaves an enormous carbon footprint when used. In my opinion, this yacht should not be the reason for a historical bridge to be dismantled, nor any historical monument to be tampered with for that matter. In fact, this yacht should not have received the permit to be built in the first place.
All in all, I hope that those 900 hundred and more people won’t come throw those eggs at Bezos’ yacht, as I myself would not do nor promote such thing. I also don’t encourage the behavior of Mr.Stormann, whose tutorials spread unnecessary violent actions. Nevertheless, even though this protest may be “a bridge too far”, as Stephan Leewis has stated, let this be an example that the influence of money has its limits and people demand equitable treatment.