November 23, 2011

A child and a cat as carbon monoxide detectors

Filed under: Animals,General,Health by Orangemaster @ 2:19 pm

A family in Edam (yes, where the cheese comes from) and a couple in Heerhugowaard have recently escaped death by carbon monoxide poisoning, according to Radio + TV Noord Holland who can sometimes be hard up for hard news.

Last week, the family in Edam was woken up in the middle of the night by their little boy who wanted to pee and in waking up the parents, he also saved them from dying, although the story offers little detail. They assume their house needs to be renovated, while the housing corporation denies it, but will check it out.

The couple in Heerhugowaard had noticed that their cat was acting very weird when in fact he was presenting with the early symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning. Thanks to the cat acting as a carbon monoxide detector, they discovered a straight leak of gas into their house from the upstairs neighbours, and in turn saved a few neighbours from death.

(My old cat Pussyminou couldn’t monitor anything but her own sleep)

(Links: rtvnh.nl, www.rtvnh.nl)

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November 22, 2011

Mayor of Haarlem got his bling stolen

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 2:12 pm

Bernt Schneiders, the Mayor of Haarlem, or Burgomaster (‘Burgemeester’) as it is called in the Netherlands, has had his silver livery collar stolen from his office. Schneiders knew about the theft, but kept it quiet, hoping someone would return it. That plan obviously failed.

Amsterdam City Council has tweeted that it was willing to lend out their spare livery collar. I mean otherwise this appointed and not democratically elected mayor couldn’t do his job, right? He’s the man who wrongly lectured the Chinese about the printing press a few years back.

It’s only worth about a couple of hundred euro (in my ‘hood that’s a lot of cash) and yeah, it can’t be that easy to pawn off in the Netherlands.

The concerned citizens of Haarlem are brainstorming ideas to get it back:
– Offering a 1,000 euro reward (sure).
– Throwing it at night in Town Hall’s mailbox – that’s not about getting it back.
– Sending it to the Haarlems Dagblad newspaper – that’s not about getting it back either.

Let’s think out of the lunch box now.

(Links: www.haarlemsdagblad.nl, Photo of the mayor of Haarlem, Mr. Bernt (B.B.) Schneiders)

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November 17, 2011

‘Knitting graffiti’ wins best neologism for 2011

Filed under: Art,General by Orangemaster @ 1:32 pm

The Dutch verb ‘wildbreien’ (literally ‘wild knitting’, but really meaning ‘knitting graffiti’) was chosen as the neologism (new word) of 2011. Instead of something negative or lowbrow, knitting graffiti should makes us all feel warm and fuzzy inside. I know I did when I snapped pictures of it in Amsterdam’s Jordaan district. It is also referred to as ‘straatbreien’ (‘street knitting’) because it livens up the streets.

If only it could keep them warm.

(Link: inl.nl)

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November 16, 2011

Goose meat croquettes made from airport geese

Filed under: Animals,Aviation,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 12:47 pm
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We’ve written a lot of croquette stories on this blog, made from meat leftovers, questionable vegetarian variants and about general croquette awareness.

A goose meat croquette sounds to me like a Dutch Christmas appetizer or even a fancy French one. However, the geese in question are some of 100.000 geese a year that are shot to stop planes at Schiphol getting geese in their engines.

Beach side café Beach Inn in IJmuiden, North Holland is serving goose meat croquettes made from the geese shot down at Schiphol airport. As I also saw recently on telly, a goose hunter for the airport said catching and releasing would mean hiring an army (they fly back to the airport anyways, a waste of time) and poisoning their eggs is just not done anymore and doesn’t really help.

The geese are usually destroyed or sometimes end up in cat food. Rob Hagenouw, an artist from Amsterdam, contacted some hunters, score some goose and worked hard at creating his own recipe. He says that with his croquettes, the flavours really come out.

Eating goose, or turkey for that matter, is not really a Christmas thing in the Netherlands for many reasons. First, many people do not have ovens due to a lack of living space. They have combination microwave and and oven devices that barely fit a decent sized pizza. Second, even if you do have an oven like I do, a goose or turkey won’t fit. Guineafowl or chicken is the best you can hope for. Another reason is that it’s just not a Dutch tradition to shove a big bird in the oven.

(Link: www.telegraaf.nl)

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November 15, 2011

Dial 114 when the neighbour kicks his cat

Filed under: Animals by Orangemaster @ 12:15 pm

The Dutch emergency number is 112, but thanks to a political party that has more in common with animals than people who don’t look Dutch, they’ve set up the emergency number 114 144, opening today, to report animal-related accidents, abuse and neglect. Calling 114 144 will send specially trained cops over to that puppy farm that sells cute puppies illegally ‘imported’ from Albania and what have you.

If you read the information from 114 Red een dier (114 Save an animal), the site tells you to dial 144, which has to be a mistake is confusing to say the least.

Of course, it sounds like a great idea, just like training ‘animal cops’ to catch people who mistreat animals and hand down tougher sentences against people who abuse animals. It remains ironic that although the current government promised 3,000 additional regular cops on the streets to handle crime, it welched on that and managed to scrounge up 500 animal cops to appease their ‘silent’ coalition partner, the one that likes furry animals and dislikes humans of the non-Dutch persuasion.

Just remember, a few years ago the Dutch finally outlawed sex with animals, but before that was a top distributor of animal porn worldwide.

Some animals are more equal than others. Just like people.

UPDATE: According to newspaper De Volkskrant, the animal emergency number is 144, but it used to be 114. Nobody knows why and the government hasn’t provided an answer yet. What a mess.

MORE UPDATE: According to nu.nl news site, it was controversial member of Parliament Dion Graus, also of the not so non Dutch friendly political party who personally reserved the domain name ‘114redeendier.nl’. He was planning to push his animal friendly ideas through for a long time, and his day came. The irony of him having been accused of beating his ex wife and making threats against his ex stepfather (justice dropped it for lack of evidence), but wanting to defend animals makes him quite the colourful politician.

(Link: www.rnw.nl)

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November 11, 2011

The King of Indo-Rock is no longer

Filed under: History,Music by Orangemaster @ 11:57 am

Rock and roll guitarist Andy Tielman, the figurehead of the Indo-Rock scene and frontman of the Tielman Brothers band has died in Indonesia at age 75.

Before immigrating to the Netherlands, the Tielman played for the Dutch military in Indonesia in the early 1950s. They quickly became famous, having been invited to play the World Expo in Brussels in 1958, just one year after landing in the Netherlands.

Later in their career, they also toured much of Germany. “At that time, bands could only play on weekends for little or no money at all, but in Germany they could get a contract for a month or at least a couple of weeks and make scandalous much money.”

Tielman fans also call him an innovator. He took a six string electric guitar, added four extra strings and tuned them in a way nobody had done before, in search of the big sound he wanted, which became the band’s tight signature sound. The bass players also had two different sounds that complimented each other through the use of different strings and specific amplifier setting, making the Tielman sound very wide on stage.

However, it’s the way Tielman brothers played their instruments live that people wanted to see and here is a video of them rockin’ out.

(Link: nos.nl)

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November 10, 2011

The Schokker, a new Dutch currency

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 11:50 am

The municipality of Noordoostpolder in the province of Flevoland run by the Christian Union (‘centrist’ Christians) and SGP (fundamentalist Christians) is seriously considering issuing their own currency, the Schokker. The name comes from a type of Dutch ship that comes from Schokland, a village in the Noordoostpolder.

An April Fools’ Day joke it isn’t: “our own currency in the municipality would strengthen the local economy, as residents would spend more locally. Of course, you could still pay in euro.”

It wouldn’t be the first time zealous Christians closed themselves off from the real world to cause more problems for themselves and others, so we’ll keep you posted.

(Link: datditkaninnederland.nl)

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November 9, 2011

The well-off like free and cheap weddings, too

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 1:07 pm

First, Beuningen boasted about its free quickie marriage between 8:45 and 9 am, now the city of Arnhem down the road is whinging about ‘rich’ people abusing their freebie wedding time slot. Ironically, newspaper De Telegraaf doesn’t write ‘rich’ (self-censorship, anyone?), but ‘highly educated’, as some sort of clever euphemism for people with actual jobs versus the state subsidised couch sitting set.

In Arnhem the waiting list for a free ‘I do’ is more than six months. Offering free weddings was to let the ‘less fortunate’ marry with or without a ceremony, common fare around the country, but come on, if you’re offering it for free in a country that thrives on free stuff, you have to expect your altruistic ideas to fail.

The Monday morning speedy wedding is popular with the ‘richer’ folks, although it’s very dressed down. To marry at another time costs 99 euro and the full monty service with separate room and guests costs 399. Just expecting people with more money to spend more is cute, but not realistic, crisis and all.

There’s really no story here except that some journalist apparently cannot wrap their brain around the fact that people with actual money have choices. They should either bone up on the finance section or move to a communist country.

(Link: telegraaf.nl, Photo by Anthony Kelly, some rights reserved)

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November 8, 2011

My name is Cohen at Jewish Historical Museum

Filed under: History,Photography by Orangemaster @ 12:46 pm
annefrankstatue1.jpg

Starting on 25 November 2011, Amsterdam’s Jewish Historical Museum will feature the exhibition ‘Mijn naam is Cohen’ (‘My name is Cohen’), a series of portraits made by Amsterdam photographer Daniel Cohen with texts by unrelated Editor-in-Chief of magazine Vrij Nederland, Mischa Cohen.

They got together and found 25 people with the same last name, but of different generations, backgrounds, gender, views, Jewish and non-Jewish. Former mayor and politician Job Cohen is mentioned as is journalist Jisca Cohen thanks in part to whom I got to meet Daniel Cohen (unrelated to each other) and found out about his project first hand. I also know he plays a good game of football.

The quick and dirty version is that Amsterdam (aka Mokum, its Jewish name still very much in use by everyone) had lots of Jews and today for Holocaust reasons has very few.

(The picture of Anne Frank, the most ‘popular’ Jewish figure of Amsterdam who was German and not Dutch.)

(Link: www.jhm.nl)

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November 4, 2011

Conductor of the Year 2012 for Jaap van Zweden

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 7:00 am

Amsterdam-born conductor and violinist Jaap van Zweden has been chosen as Conductor of the Year 2012 by a professional American jury of publisher Musical America, and will be awarded the prestigious prize in New York City on 5 December.

Van Zweden is currently Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and has a string of other impressive credentials, including having been appointed as the youngest concertmaster ever of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam at age 19.

Although I knew his name from long ago having worked in a classical music store, he made a big impression on telly back in November 2010 by criticising the current government’s plan to cut 20% of the budget for cultural institutions within a one year period and abolish four internationally known and well-established classical ones.

He explains that the Dutch pay taxes to fund the arts as opposed to voluntary contributions from wealthy donors and companies like in the US (endowment). He thinks it’s unfair that the Dutch government cuts into culture, but keeps the money people put it to fund it. And if the Dutch want a more American like system, it needs more than just a year to make it work.

“We asked [Dutch] politicians why all these institutions have to disappear and no-bo-dy wanted to explain it to us.” The populistic politician in this clip doesn’t care about the quality of any top institution, as he claims 90% of ordinary people don’t go to classical music concerts and their taxes shouldn’t be used for that.

I’d like to stop paying taxes for their white trash xenophobic kids, so let’s make a deal.

(Link: at5.nl, www.imgartists.com)

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