By Paul Laster and Renée Riccardo

Iris van Dongen’s ‘Suspicious’ - a survey show of the artist’s large-scale drawings from 2003 to 2009, recently on view at the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam - was a striking exhibition by a rising star on the international art scene. Born in Tilburg in 1975 and living and working in Berlin, Van Dongen mixes pastel and charcoal in her works on paper that portray gorgeous, gothic mistresses and femme fatales.

We only recently discovered her work when Paul photographed New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz alongside one of her pastels at the Armory Show. The figure in the drawing totally dwarfed him, and Van Dongen’s work forever stuck in our minds. We later discovered that she had shown in New York at Salon 94, a gallery run by our friend Jeannie Greenburg Rohatyn, but we had somehow missed that 2005 solo exhibition. (more…)

By Malcolm J. Bowman

At some time in the future, New York City will inevitably be struck by an extreme hurricane or winter nor’easter that will lead to significant damage to infrastructure including power, communications, water and sewage systems, hospitals, schools, industries, commercial activities, transportation systems, buildings and homes. Serious flooding and threats to human life will follow. Global warming, rising sea level and a growing population living near the waterfront will increase the risk and worsen the consequences. Among the port cities of the world, New York ranks among the top ten most vulnerable in the size of the population exposed, second only to Miami in the infrastructure assets at risk, and undoubtedly first in terms of the economic damage that would result.

On June 9-10, 2009, 75 scientific, engineering, legal, insurance, policy and environmental experts on climate change and adaptation measures gathered from around the world at Stony Brook University, Manhattan campus at a forum entitled “Connecting Delta Cities” to discuss these issues and all their implications. (more…)

By Professor Robert Hoeksema

Much has already been said about Dutch leadership in water management. Recently, a congressional delegation visited the Netherlands to learn more about this. So why are the Dutch such experts? Simply put, they have history on their side.

Much of the Netherlands is a flat, low-lying delta overlain by layers of compressible peat and clay soils. Around 1000 years ago land use practices initiated decay and consolidation of these soils causing significant land subsidence. This, along with postglacial sea level rise, tides, and storm surges, created a constantly changing landscape always threatened by the sea. (Today one-third of county lies below sea level and without dunes, dikes, and pumps, 65% would be regularly flooded). (more…)

I, Henry Hudson, 39, have returned from my second unsuccessful voyage to Cathay. The year is 1609. I will try again working for the VOC.

Early June, 1609 - Since leaving our beach promenade in the Faeroes, we’re had alternating fair weather and fog, along with gales and more gales mostly from easterlies.  Fog and gales . . . or as the Dutch crewmen say, mist en sterk wind.

It’s a secret confided only to my personal diary that our heading west southwest is my choice, my defiance of orders from the VOC to attempt only the Northeast Passage over Nova Zembla to Cathay, but this adverse weather plays in my favor. (more…)

By Stephen Sabludowsky,  reporter from Louisiana, traveling with the US congressional delegation to the Netherlands to study the Dutch integrated water management system.

The Netherlands have discovered that the color of water is “green” and
“gold”.  Now it’s up to Louisiana, New Orleans and the United States to
realize that our waters can be a different blend of red, white and blue
to achieve the same or similar results–as that  amazing country facing
the North Sea.

Last week, I further discovered the incredible importance how water impacts the small country of The Netherlands and America when I attended an  intensive “Study”–led by U.S. Senator, Mary Landrieu (D-La) and Lisa P. Jackson, the new Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.  The “Study” was hosted by the Dutch government. (more…)