September 5, 2011

Apache Junction, Western comic strip album by Peter Nuyten

Filed under: Comics by Branko Collin @ 9:23 am

During my student days I helped publish a comics fanzine called Iris, and our ‘thing’ was that we enjoyed making mainstream European comics.

That is why it is doubly satisfying to be holding Peter Nuyten’s Western comic Apache Junction in my hands. Peter was a contributor to Iris back in the day, and Apache Junction is as traditionally European as it gets.

The Western takes place around 1875 and follows a US Army messenger, at a time when Apache tribes refuse to be locked up in reservations and engage the federal government in guerilla war fare. The messenger gets wounded in a knife fight and needs to seek refuge at a lonely farm.

Holly Moors has this to say about Apache Junction: “Nuyten seems to want to combine the exciting stories of Jean Giraud and the engaged, critical attitude of Hans Kresse. He is a bit too wordy in the first part of the album, and could use a good, tight script writer. That way he can focus on the art, where he doesn’t quite yet reach Giraud’s level, though he is getting there. […] Still, I have finished the album in one go, and will certainly read the second part, because this is definitely an artist to keep an eye on.”

Me, I felt the story got progressively better, and I cannot wait for the second part.

Apache Junction (part 1, 2011) is published by Silvester and cost 16,95 euro in hard cover format. More reviews (in Dutch) after the link.

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September 4, 2011

Fleeing from Nazis in a Chevy-powered boat

Filed under: History by Branko Collin @ 12:30 pm

During World War II about 1,900 people fled Dutch territory to unoccupied lands, sometimes to be safe, sometimes to help the allies fight the Nazis. These people were called Engelandvaarders (England-goers), regardless of whether they actually went to England.

The New York Times blog has a story about five of them, students, who fled the country in a DIY motor boat after the Nazis required all students to sign a loyalty oath.

Their engine, commonly known at the time of its manufacture as the cast-iron wonder, was introduced in 1929, giving Chevy customers “a six for the price of a four,” as the advertising slogan said. Displacing 194 cubic inches, it produced 46 horsepower at 2,600 r.p.m. Fuel consumption was 19 m.p.g.

The men bought the engine from a marina operator in western Holland, paying 700 Dutch guilders. Fitting it to their seven-meter launch required numerous modifications, including an underwater exhaust outlet to suppress noise. The driveline and propeller were clandestinely built.

The five made it to England safely—in the end they were picked up by the British navy.

One of the most famous Engelandvaarders was Leiden University student Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema who was portrayed by Rutger Hauer in the Paul Verhoeven film Soldier of Orange, after Hazelhoff Roelfzema’s autobiography.

(Source photo: a still from a video by Captain A.J. Hardy, now in the public domain)

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September 3, 2011

Pixelated red on a mug means blood

Filed under: Art,Design,Photography by Branko Collin @ 7:34 pm

If you thought the story about the asylum seeker game show was bad, you may not wish to read on.

The mugs that photographer Raoul de Lange makes may seem rather pedestrian—a couple of cheerfully coloured pixels being the only adornment—but the pixels are based on photos of people that were shot down during the Arab Spring, and that did not even get to enjoy some privacy from prying photographers.

These mugs were De Lange’s senior project (called Mug Shots) at the Royal Academy of Art. He was the only photographer of his year who did not use his own photos, Bright reports.

De Lange writes: “In [this project] I try to make the dead and wounded of the Arab Spring a part of our daily lives in an acceptable manner.”

(Source photo: Raouldelange.nl. Warning: bloody photos behind the link.)

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September 2, 2011

Ironic game show mocks failed asylum policy

Filed under: Shows by Branko Collin @ 4:32 pm

Yesterday broadcaster VPRO aired a show called Weg van Nederland (which can mean either Away from the Netherlands, or Crazy about the Netherlands).

Writes The Guardian:

Contestants on the one-off game show from the public broadcaster VPRO, part of an annual week of experimental programmes, comprise five asylum seekers who have exhausted legal avenues to stay in the Netherlands and await imminent deportation to their country of origin.

They compete in a quiz about Dutch culture, history and language, with the winner awarded €4,000 (£3,500) to help cushion them when they are expelled. Consolation prizes include a bulletproof vest.

Excellent write-up, though I am not sure about the description of the “mini-skirted pastiche of air cabin crew uniforms”. To me those outfits look like sexed-up customs uniforms.

The paper quotes VPRO head Frank Wiering: “These days many asylum seekers who are being expelled have children who have lived in the Netherlands for eight years or more. They have had a good education, speak perfect Dutch and have only seen their country of birth on television. We believe it’s time to stop and think about this.”

See also “TV quiz for asylum seekers courts controversy” (Radio Netherlands).

Source trailer: Youtube / VPRO. Tip of the hat to Marijn.

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September 1, 2011

Tracking down pooping dog owners using dog DNA

Filed under: Animals,Science by Orangemaster @ 3:59 pm

There can be quite some dog pooh on the street in the Netherlands sometimes because the owners pay taxes and some interpret that as ‘my dog can go anywhere it wants without me having to pick it up because I pay for it.’ It could be worse, but it could always be better.

The town of Wijchen, Gelderland is considering getting some device that reads pooh DNA, finds the dog that matches it, which in turn leads to the owner getting a fine. It’s all very CSI. Would people and law makers actually allow the reading of dog pooh DNA as a basis for a fine? And then the town has to properly keep a DNA database of all the dogs. Experience teaches us that government and databases are a very bad match in general.

The bottom line is, it’s also really expensive, the boffins say.

(Link: www.gelderlander.nl.nl, Photo of Pick Up Your Dog Poo by Michael Coghlan, some rights reserved)

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August 31, 2011

Pianos take over the streets of Tilburg

Filed under: Art,Music by Orangemaster @ 5:27 pm

A project entitled ”Play Me, I’m Yours” by English artist Luke Jerram at Tilburg’s annual Incubate Festival will feature 101 pianos scattered around the city between September 12 and 18. Anybody can go and play the pianos in the parks, squares and at train stations. And they’ll surely be painted all kinds of pretty colours.

Some 200 musicians and music students have already showed a keen interest in giving concerts. And with so many people wanting to go and play the pianos, the city of Tilburg will surpass Jerram’s previous projects that took place in major cities such as New York and London.

Incubate donated the pianos and volunteer residents will babysit and care for the pianos during the event. Pet pianos, if you will. And with all this rain, that sounds like a good idea although all the rumours point to fantastic weather in September. And there will be music, too.

(Link: refdag.nl, Photo of piano keyboard by Adam Henning, some rights reserved)

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August 30, 2011

24 Oranges: switching from a Facebook Group to a Facebook Page

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 7:50 pm

We will be abandoning our Facebook Group and continue with a Facebook Page instead. You can find the page at http://www.facebook.com/24oranges?sk=wall.

If you were a member of our group, follow us on Facebook by ‘liking’ our Page, as the group will be deleted.

We use Facebook for all kinds of things. We connect with our readers through it, and our page wall has its own content, although sometimes we post a link to a blog posting if the article is especially apt for our Facebook friends.

As for the difference between Facebook’s ‘pages’ and ‘groups’, they continue to mystify us and everybody else including, I gather, Facebook themselves. It would seem that the philosophy behind a page fits us better. From what I understand, Facebook initially intended groups to be a way for friends and family to connect, whereas pages are intended for larger groups of people.

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Christians first, then we rank people

Filed under: Religion by Orangemaster @ 2:32 pm

Since 2001 practicing, recognised Christian bureaucrats down at city hall where told that part of their job was to marry everbody, including gays and lesbians. Christian Democrat Minister of Education, Culture and Science Maria Van Bijsterveld said that practicing Christians could refuse to marry gays and lesbians on religious grounds, as long as it does not go against the basic principes set out in the Dutch constitution — they cannot refuse on the basis of race. Therefore, Christians can refuse to marry gays and lesbians, but not an Asian couple. Even my argument assumes the practicing Christian in question is white and has light coloured hair.

According to Piet Hein Donner, Christian Democrat Minister of the Interior, anyone of any other faith does not have the right to refuse to marry anybody on those same grounds. Christian are therefore protected by law, but other people have to just do their job and shut up. In my book, that’s discrimination. Or favouritism.

And so we’ve learnt two painful facts about the current Dutch government: Christians are above people of other faiths and people of other ethnic backgrounds are better than gays.

No one ever got the memo that the Dutch constitution has an apartheid-like reading to it. Parliament plans to have a lovely discussion about this state of affairs.

(Link geenstijl.nl, Photo of the Saint Gertrude cathedral in Utrecht by Wikimedia user pepijntje, some rights reserved)

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August 29, 2011

Parrot helps catch its thief

Filed under: Animals by Branko Collin @ 8:43 am

Last Wednesday the Barneveld police arrested a thief after the parrot he had stolen responded to its owner’s call.

The African Grey was one of 70 birds that had been stolen from a nearby location. The owner had received a tip that two of his birds had been spotted at the animal market of Barneveld. When he called the bird’s name, it came to him. The police then verified the owner’s claim by checking the ring numbers. A second bird from the theft was also retrieved.

Two other birds were discovered in the home of the thief, a 30-year-old man from Hilversum.

(Photo of an unrelated African Grey parrot by Wikipedia user Jonathan G Wang who released it into the public domain)

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August 28, 2011

Weather prediction for the next ten years—rain, rain, rain

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 12:09 pm

It’s been raining a lot here this summer—I thought I’d share the pain (and the view from my window) a bit.

Meanwhile, Noordhoff publishers and the Dutch weather office, KNMI, presented a climate atlas last week. Some interesting tidbits:

* Worldwide the temperature has risen 0.7 degrees Celsius over the past 50 years, in the Netherlands that was 1.4.

* The temperature in Amsterdam averages 11 degrees Celsius over the past thirty years, which is the same average as Lyon (in the South of France) had thirty years ago.

* The rainiest places in the country are the Veluwe (the nature reserve in the middle of the country) and the North of Amsterdam.

* The skies released 850 litres water per square metre on average; 100 years ago that average was 700 litres.

Since we’re in the middle of a period of global warming, it is expected that these trends will continue (though KNMI is hedging its bets).

Update August 31, 2011: Dutch News: It’s official: this is the wettest summer since 1906.

(Links: Parool.nl, Vereniging voor Weerkunde en Klimatologie)

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