August 28, 2010

Police harass man with dozens of parking tickets

Filed under: Automobiles by Branko Collin @ 9:43 pm

‘Klaas’ from Zwolle does everything right. His car has a handicapped parking card clearly visible under the window, valid and dated, and yet the police keep ticketing him for illegal parking in the lot in front of his house. Since April of this year he has received over 40 parking tickets with a combined worth of nearly 3,000 euro.

Rather than paying his tickets, he has decided to stick it to the man. He has been decorating his car with the tickets, and with drawings, post cards and a real pirate flag.

In an interview with newspaper De Stentor the man who wishes to remain anonymous—even though everybody in Zwolle probably knows who he is by now—explains how it all started: “The first guy who ticketed me treated me like a little dog. That’s when I turned my back on him. Since then the big boys have been coming over here daily to book me.”

“I own more than one car. As somebody confined to a wheel chair I like things on wheels. […] I will have every ticket contested in court, one by one. That way the city will have to pay tons of court costs.”

The city of Zwolle responded to the newspaper, but considering they would have towed his car away after the third or so ticket if they actually were in the right, I don’t think printing their answer here is going to tell you much.

(Photo: Zaltbommel.nl)

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August 23, 2010

Naked woman and curious cow: election poster of the century

Filed under: Design by Branko Collin @ 8:26 am

In 2006 this poster was elected best political poster of the Netherlands of the past 90 years. It was used in 1971 by the Pacifist Socialist Party (PSP), one of the predecessors of GroenLinks, for the lower house elections. The caption reads ‘Disarming PSP’.

The photo was originally taken for sexual reform magazine Sekstant, but designer George Noordanus surmised that it could also help create a storm of protest among Christians whose political parties supported the Vietnam war, but opposed innocent nudity, thereby exposing their hypocrisy.

Although it did just that, the raised profile did not help the PSP as it lost half its seats in the lower house after the elections. Support for the poster was also divided within the party, as some members considered it sexist. Ironically enough, it was the sexist argument that in the end helped seal the deal. As one member put it, “workers like naked chicks.”

Both Ayaan Hirsi Magan (ex VVD, liberal) and Femke Halsema (GroenLinks, ‘green left’), political opposites, see the poster as a symbol of their ideals.

See also this site about election posters in the Netherlands.

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August 22, 2010

Johan Voskamp scores 8 goals in professional match

Filed under: Sports by Branko Collin @ 9:23 pm

The second Dutch football league may not exactly be known for the defensive capabilities of its teams, but when the oldest Dutch professional football team Sparta Rotterdam (1888) relegated last year they probably did not expect the red carpet either.

Yet in its second game this season Sparta routed Almere FC 12-1, and 25-year-old striker Johan Voskamp scored 8 of those goals. Voskamp had just been bought from Helmond Sport who play in the same league. A video of his goals can perhaps be viewed at Youtube.

The second division is called Eerste Divisie (‘first division’) because the first division is called Eredivisie (‘honorary division’).

Henk Schouten scored nine goals for Feijenoord in 1956, in what was then still called the Hoofdklasse. The Eredivisie and Eerste Divisie were introduced a season later. All time top scorer for a single match in the Eredivisie is Afonso Alves (Heerenveen) with 7 goals in a match against Heracles in 2007. The previous record holders for the Eerste Divisie were Jerry Taihuttu (1997) and Ugur Yildirim (2003), with 6 goals each. Both players went on to play in the top tier the next season.

(Photo by Kralinger, some rights reserved)

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Chandelier made of digital photo frames

Filed under: Design by Branko Collin @ 11:21 am

Naarden design studio Brand van Egmond (William Brand and Annet van Egmond) came up with these chandeliers. Their website doesn’t say if and where you can buy them. Check out the Milan video, it shows the chandeliers in use.

(Link: Trendhunter)

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August 21, 2010

Rail operator ProRail wants to rein in suicide by train

Filed under: Health by Branko Collin @ 12:33 pm

ProRail, the Dutch railway network operator, wants to diminish the number of suicides committed by people jumping in front of a moving train. The organisation aims at a reduction of 5% over the next four years. Currently, 200 people kill themselves by jumping in front of a moving train, which is 12% of the total number of suicides, the highest ratio in the region.

According to ProRail, about half of all suicides are committed by people who are undergoing psychiatric care. The network operator has already experimented by placing gates near psychiatric hospitals and by turning level crossings into viaducts.

The current policy of the Dutch Association for Psychiatry (NVvP) is to advise its members to send the suicidal out into the street. This policy is much to the dismay of the Union for Train Drivers and Conductors (VVMC) who point out that people jumping in front of moving trains are very traumatic experiences for their members.

(Photo by Jason Rogers, some rights reserved)

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August 19, 2010

Sail Amsterdam 2010, tall ship parade

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 10:20 pm

Our first video report. It’s got a few glitches as we are trying to get used to a new medium. Enjoy.

Today Sail Amsterdam 2010 started with the traditional parade of tall ships. Led by the clipper Stad Amsterdam, 30 tall ships and a lot of small boats entered IJ harbour, which is wedged between Java Island and Piet Heinkade.

Sail Amsterdam was first organised in 1975 and has since been held every five years. The festivities will continue for the next three days, and include live music and theatre. On Friday a parade of barely floating home-built boats will be held in the canals of Amsterdam, the so-called Pieremachocheltocht. Most of the tall ships can be visited for free between 10 am and 4 pm.

This year’s event drew criticism from ship owners, who feel they have to pay the organisers too much money. They think it is wrong that so much of the proceeds of an event that is heavily sponsored by the government disappear in the pockets of a nebulous agency, Sail Arrangementen. The latter replied in newspaper De Pers that they do not understand what all the hoopla is about, as the ships’ owners still sell a lot of tickets.

This is Natasha Cloutier for 24oranges.nl.

The performance at the end of the video was by De Zingende Kapitein. Photo below by the Koninklijke Marine (featuring the frigate HMS Tromp).

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August 16, 2010

Amsterdam through the eyes of its photobloggers

Filed under: Photography by Branko Collin @ 8:00 am

Meet Amsterdam.

Perhaps all cities have photobloggers, but if that is the case, I seem to have missed them. However, the documentary photographers of Amsterdam pop up on my radar all the time. These men—always men?—aim to bring you at least one portrait of the city a day, slowly recording its history in extreme close-up.

Thomas Schlijper is perhaps their leader. A professional photographer, he nevertheless seems to find plenty of time for photographs taken just for fun. Shown here a fountain on Frederiksplein at dusk, and somebody else trying to capture the moment.

Marien van Os wants to become a better photographer, so he practises by publishing (at least) one photo a day at 1pictureaday.com. In this photo a heron stalks a fisherman on the Amstel river, waiting till the right moment.

This photo is by René Louman who often just leans out of his window to take a picture. I approve of this, because it would be a shame to waste a good window. Louman likes people. I don’t know exactly where this photo of a waitress wrestling a huge parasol was taken, but with all the fresh brick in Louman’s photos, I would guess the Oostelijk Havengebied (Eastern Harbour).

Others you may wish to check out:

  • Milo Vermeulen
  • Peter de Wit (Facemepls, whose Creative Commonsed photos we often use at 24 Oranges)
  • Marc van Woudenberg makes things easy on himself by photographing people when they look their best: on stately Dutch bikes.

Did I miss anyone?

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August 15, 2010

Zoo lures reporters with monkey see, monkey do story

Filed under: Animals by Branko Collin @ 4:43 pm

Ouwehands Dierenpark, a zoo in Rhenen near Wageningen, has successfully managed to lure reporters to its new orangutan enclosure with a story about behavioural conditioning.

The reporters’ banana took the shape of gymnast Epke Zonderland (silver medalist at the 2009 World Championships), who performed a couple of exercises on the parallel bars. The zoo had told the press it hoped Zonderland’s example would spur the orangutans on to use the climbing ropes in their new compound.

Reporters of amongst other BBC (video), Reuters and RTL Nieuws showed up last Friday to record footage of a lacklustre ape taking its first tentative steps on a tightrope. Seven trees in the enclosure contain a food lift that will carry fruit and other snacks upstairs as an incentive for the orangutans to walk their tightropes. In doing so the apes will alleviate both themselves and their human visitors of boredom, the zoo hopes.

(Photo by McSmit, some rights reserved)

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August 14, 2010

One in five elderly bullied by peers

Filed under: Science by Branko Collin @ 3:05 pm

elderly_manA study showed last year that 1 in 5 senior citizens in retirement homes are bullied by their fellow residents.

Hester Trompeter, student behavioural sciences at the Radboud University in Nijmegen, interviewed 121 residents. According to Trouw, the bullying took the shape of ignoring people, gossiping and systematically shutting others out from common activities. Study coordinator Ron Scholte added that since the interviewees represented the people willing to talk, the real problem might even be bigger.

Last week the Ouderenfonds (National Fund for the Elderly) called for a protocol for dealing with bullying among the elderly. On the fund’s website its director Jan Romme gave a harrowing example of a man who was afraid to leave his room for seven years and finally died in complete loneliness.

Romme sees as one of the causes of the bullying problem that the elderly no longer can choose which retirement home to live in. “Bullies are put in the same homes as their former victims, and have the advantage of having all the time in the world now, and of having been able to perfect their techniques.”

(Photo by Frank Mayne, some rights reserved)

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August 9, 2010

Psychiatric patients get a bit of privacy back

Filed under: Health by Branko Collin @ 8:25 am

healthcareA court ordered last week that the national care monitor NZA can no longer demand of psychiatrists that they provide details about their patients’ mental health problems.

Nationale Zorg Autoriteit, which monitors the application of the health care laws and sets prices where necessary, bases its rates for psychiatric care on so-called ‘diagnosis-treatment combinations’ (DBCs) and requires psychiatrists to report the DBCs they have used for specific patients.

The court (College van Beroep voor het bedrijfsleven, i.e. ‘college of appeal for businesses’) held on August 2 that since insurance company employees who were not bound by medical confidentiality had access to the DBCs, the NZA had not given enough weight to the privacy interests of patients.

NZA now gets to go back to the drawing board and come up with new plans for a rate structure that does not (or to a lesser extent) compromise patients’ privacy.

Last year, political blog Sargasso already pointed out that once these data are out from under the protective umbrella of medical confidentiality, they can easily be abused by for instance the government, which could, for example, decide not to hire somebody as a civil servant based on their detailed medical history.

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