{"id":2675,"date":"2013-02-03T21:45:28","date_gmt":"2013-02-04T01:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?p=2675"},"modified":"2013-02-03T21:45:28","modified_gmt":"2013-02-04T01:45:28","slug":"the-queen-and-the-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?p=2675","title":{"rendered":"The queen and the country"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"dropcap\">A<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?attachment_id=2634\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2634\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/hanzelijn2-150x112.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"112\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-2634 alignright\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/hanzelijn2-150x112.jpg 150w, http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/hanzelijn2-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/hanzelijn2.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>couple of days ago, the Dutch queen Beatrix announced that she is going to abdicate the throne in favour of her son Willem-Alexander (<a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424127887323375204578269900061751528.html\">WSJ<\/a>).The queen has been on the throne for 33 or some years: In the Netherlands, abdication (to make room for a new generation of royalty) is a fairly common thing. In contrast: the last time a member of the British royalty abdicated was because of a scandal, I believe.\n<\/p>\n<p>Note that I&#8217;m not typically a monarchist: while I generally think that monarchies are left-overs from the medieval times, I&#8217;m not typically an anti-royalist either. I do recall that there were protests when Beatrix took over the throne from her mother Juliana, way back in 1980. I was a slight teenager and I&#8217;m pretty certain that I enjoyed the day off, possibly watch TV for the official (live) events. Looking back; I think Beatrix did <em>fairly<\/em> well as head of state. Rumour has it that she frequently discussed matters and personally engaged (challenged) the Dutch prime-ministers, that is, politically speaking. I hear that the monarchy did lose their power to appoint a &#8216;formateur&#8217; (a person who after the general elections is appointed to help form a new government).\n<\/p>\n<p>So, yeah: that&#8217;s it then for Dutch queens for now. For the next 30 or so years, the Dutch will have a king. Typically, female Dutch heirs do better. Well, generally. I think. Whichever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Acouple of days ago, the Dutch queen Beatrix announced that she is going to abdicate the throne in favour of her son Willem-Alexander (WSJ).The queen has been on the throne for 33 or some years: In the Netherlands, abdication (to &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?p=2675\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[550,47],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2675"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2675\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}