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Heli's Heaven and Hell Radio : NEWS AND VIEWS on art, literature, politics, Bush.
Updated: 10/8/04; 11:03:02.

 

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Tuesday, August 10, 2004


brought to you by Fiore.
10:51:08 AM    trackback []


ICH: "CNN has finally 'outfoxed' Fox. It is no longer 'America's Campaign Headquarters'. It has worked hard and has earned the right to be called 'Bush Campaign Headquarters'. Congratulations."
10:49:36 AM    trackback []


Haaretz: "Former deputy Mossad director, Shmuel Toledano, launched a harsh verbal attack on Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon on Sunday, saying that the IDF under his leadership had lost its morality and military ethics."
10:36:48 AM    trackback []

Monday, August 9, 2004


"Five suicide attempts a day at Holloway: Officers at Holloway prison are cutting down five women a day from nooses, the Guardian has learned, and recently saved one inmate six times in a single night."
8:54:40 PM    trackback []


Slam Bush is a groundbreaking national contest for MCs and Slam Poets that will prevent George W. Bush from snatching another term in office. This summer the nation's most talented battle MCs and Slam Poets will step to the mic in battleground states to call George W. Bush out on his lies. The top lyricists will win cash prizes and earn a chance to perform in front of music industry insiders.
All the details are at Slam Bush; check out this video.
Why slam Bush? One reason out of many: "The number of Americans with employer-paid health coverage fell dramatically from 2001 to 2003, with about 9 million people losing coverage, according to a national study released Aug. 2.
At present, about 43 million Americans have no health insurance coverage, either public or private."
1:55:14 PM    trackback []


At noon it will be official: the Netherlands will have had a heatwave again. It's becoming a nuisance. Power stations have difficulties coping with the situation. Pollution levels are exacerbated by the heat. Temperatures in my garden went up to 36.2°C.
I feel like a cat on a hot tin roof.
Last year 1,400 victims were reported.
11:22:10 AM    trackback []


Scotsman: "Mr Berlusconi has ordered an extensive make-over of his luxury 27-bedroom villa and surrounding grounds on the Sardinian coast in preparation for arrival of the Prime Minister and his wife.
The opera star Luciano Pavarotti has been apparently asked to serenade the couple from a specially built 400-seat amphitheatre.
Gardeners are planting 100-year-old olive trees costing up to £6,000 apiece in an apparent attempt to remind the couple of Tuscany, where they first courted.
A secret tunnel walkway has been constructed to shield the Blairs from the prying lenses that have proved so tiresome on other jaunts.
And all for a two-day stay."
Lemme tell ya, Tony, and dis is me, Silvio, speakin', whaddeya say, eh, eh? Had to bend da law a bit for dis. How's the bro in Springfield, man?
10:52:24 AM    trackback []

Sunday, August 8, 2004


At 17:40 local time:
Wind: Variable at 25.6 km/h (14 Kt, 16 mph), Visibility: 11.2+ km (7 Miles)
Temperature: 31° C (87° F), Relative Humidity: 35%
Pressure (altimeter): 1007 hPa (29.74 in. Hg), Ceiling: No Ceiling
4:07:13 PM    trackback []


A picture named Cat1.jpgA picture named Cat2.jpg I don't know their names, but these cats regularly come and visit me. The calico cat on the left rubs its head against me, rolls on its back, so it has complete trust in me. The ginger cat is a bit more cautious (maybe because the other cat has already put a claim on me), though it loves a good cuddle.
This morning a car parked in front of my house. Two people got out and left their dog in the car. The sunroof was set ajar and one of the windows was lowered a bit. But the sun was gradually shining full blast on that car. So I became worried. At first the dog growled somewhat when he saw me. After some time it was clear the dog was suffering from the heat and had no energy left to react. I went to the house where those people were supposed to be and told them about my worries. The dog is alright, they told me. Nothing happened for the next quarter of an hour. But then after twenty minutes those people came out and drove away. Poor dog! Just in time.
A cat would never put up with such an attitude. It would have got out or ruined the whole interior of that car. Righto! That poor dog would have wagged his tail if he still had the energy to do so, when his owners came back. That's why I prefer cats.
Here's your bonus cat story.
1:21:29 PM    trackback []


"XXI CENTURY is a documentary film in seven parts that tries to give some answers but above all wants to keep asking questions.
XXI CENTURY starts its journey from the presidential elections 2000. What happened in those elections? Who really won the State of Florida? How many Americans could not vote in Florida that day? Why? Who were they? Why was the Supreme Court called to decide who was the winner? Did the media do their job? Howard Zinn talks about a 'political coup' and Gore Vidal refers to the 2000 Presidential Elections as 'the end of the Republic'. Why?"
12:09:48 AM    trackback []

Saturday, August 7, 2004


SFGate: "While hardly anyone was watching, the Bush administration has rejected provisions of an international treaty calling for inspections and verifications of nuclear weapons. It's a significant, unexpected and imprudent shift in U.S. policy that clashes sharply with the president's oft-stated support for global nonproliferation.
In a dumbfounding announcement, the administration said it supported the treaty, but not its call for inspections and verifications, without which the treaty is meaningless.
This means the White House is declining to adhere to the kinds of inspections that it has long insisted upon for much of the rest of the world."
9:03:18 PM    trackback []


AlterNet: "Death Cab for Cutie, for example, will be singing for your vote. Bright Eyes will woo you. Bruce Springsteen cares little for New Jersey at this point, surprisingly enough. He's focusing more on Ann Arbor and Orlando. They all want to serenade you and seduce you so you will take a ballot November 2 and 'vote for change'."
November 2.
12:32:56 PM    trackback []


A picture named Idle.jpg
The drawing on the right is by Paul Cox (illustration of one of the Jeeves and Wooster books of P.G. Wodehouse).
How To Be Idle: "The art of living is the art of bringing dreams and reality together. I have a dream. It is called love, anarchy, freedom. It is called being idle.
The lie-in - by which I mean lying in bed awake - is not a selfish indulgence but an essential tool for any student of the art of living.
Idleness as a waste of time is a damaging notion put about by its spiritually vacant enemies. Introspection could lead to that terrible thing: a vision of the truth, a clear image of the horror of our fractured, dissonant world."
The repressive labour ethos of the modern neo-con is close to the slogan 'Arbeit Macht Frei'. But, mind you, that labour ethos only applies to 'the others' - l'enfer c'est pour les autres: work till you drop dead. They don't want you to have time for thinking, dreaming, writing books, making art. Where would we be if writers, artists, thinkers hadn't taken the time to muse upon life?
And what a heaven this earth would be if all those busybodies - working hard at making this our Eden into a hell of poverty and war - would be idle.
Now what do you think about the art of not writing books: "Imaginary novels and incredible stories are being collected for posterity in an unconventional UK arts project, the Library of Unwritten Books."
I prefer my books to be written. Though I must say I do have a painting in my mind that still waits for being painted. I have a good mind to relax this afternoon with a good book by P.G. Wodehouse, say A Gentleman of Leisure.
12:18:42 PM    trackback []

Friday, August 6, 2004


BBC: "Confusion surrounds claims that an al-Qaeda plan to attack Heathrow airport was foiled by British police.
The Times newspaper said an attack was in its 'final stages' but had been averted after UK police acted on Pakistani intelligence. But government officials in Pakistan deny any details were passed to the UK.
The Home Office confirmed that there had not been a specific threat."
Salon: "Rep. Katherine Harris has earned herself another dubious distinction. After doing her best to secure Florida's electoral votes for President Bush in 2000, the former Florida secretary of state turned U.S. Rep is now inventing terror plots to boost Bush's campaign.
The AP reports today: 'Republican Rep. Katherine Harris said Wednesday she regrets concerns caused by her claim that a plot existed to blow up the power grid in Carmel, Ind. City officials disputed the claims of a plot.'"
5:48:34 PM    trackback []


"It wasn't necesssary to hit them with that awful thing.
Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander Allied Forces Europe, and later President of The United States.
When the atomic bomb was dropped, President Truman said that it was to make Japan surrender without losing large numbers of American lives in an invasion. This has long been the accepted truth. The release of documents and diaries now shows this story is false. In the months before the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Truman and his senior staff did not believe that it was necessary to drop the bomb to end the war with Japan. They believed that Japan could be brought to surrender without an invasion. Japan was militarily isolated and had no allies. They believed that bombing, blockade, and the entry of the Soviet Union into the war against Japan, would together force Japanese leaders to seek surrender on American terms. Most important, from diplomatic contacts and decoded Japanese wireless transmissions, they knew that the Japanese were seeking surrender. They believed that if they allowed the Japanese to retain the Emperor, as they later agreed to, the Japanese would accept American terms of surrender."
Turks: "Cancer and birth defects have been spreading like wildfire in Iraq since the 1991 US-led Gulf War ... 7500 Iraqis are being infected with cancer ever year."
11:34:07 AM    trackback []


White House: "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." (For as long as the link will give the original statement.)
Now you have it straight from the horse's mouth. Bush was serious, the audience remained unruffled.
Via Joi Ito's who also has the sound file.
I have made it the Theme of the month (see top yellow bar) so you can enjoy it whenever you want until at least the next month.
10:52:56 AM    trackback []

Thursday, August 5, 2004


Reuters: "In face-to-face interviews with 410 physicians in the Netherlands, 52 percent said that in the previous two years they had administered sedating medications while withholding fluids and nutrition for patients nearing death.
Hastening death was partly the intention of the physician in 47 percent of the terminal sedation cases and the explicit intention for 17 percent.
According to their report in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Dr. Judith A. C. Rietjens from Erasmus Medical Center in Amsterdam, and colleagues, found that physicians discussed the use of terminal sedation with the patient in 59 percent of cases and with patients' relatives 93 percent of instances. The decision to forgo food and water was discussed with the patient in only 34 percent of cases.
While physicians surveyed 'almost always' discussed the use of terminal sedation with relatives, Rietjens and colleagues found it 'remarkable' that general practitioners often did not consult other physicians or caregivers and rarely sought the advice of specialists in palliative care or pain management.
This concerns Dr. Muriel R. Gillick from Harvard Medical School in Boston, who notes in an editorial that 'although state-of-the-art palliative care should substantially control pain in 90 percent of cases', pain was the most common reason for turning to terminal sedation.
'That the Dutch physicians seldom used palliative care consultation underscores the concern that they may have used terminal sedation when a less drastic approach existed,' Gillick writes."
I fully agree with Dr. Gillick. From personal experience I know that it is enough for one nurse (who does not personally know the patient) to mention to the physician that the patient is having pain, for a parcel to arrive from the chemist with heavy morphiates without any information leaflets. If you ask for such a leaflet you immediately understand that when administered the patient will die in a couple of hours. I think this is inadmissible. No information, or wrong information, is given by doctors; nothing is done to ease the pain by other means (because the health insurance will not pay for this in the case of terminal patients). And in many cases the doctors disregard the wishes of the patients and their families.
1:19:33 PM    trackback []


Slate: "In a court filing on Friday, the administration announced its intention to deny Guantanamo Bay detainees full access to counsel to prepare their habeas corpus petitions and signaled that it would resume its relentless legal tactics to fight the detainees in the courts on a host of procedural issues."
Asia Times: "'Pakistan is not sending its troops to Iraq.' So reads the most recent handout from the Pakistani Foreign Office and the clearest signal yet that President General Pervez Musharraf is finally attempting to distance himself from the United States' sphere of influence, even if only for domestic expediency."
Boycot Bush and his war profiteers.
12:21:08 PM    trackback []


A noir, E blanc, I rouge, U vert, O bleu : voyelles,
Je dirai quelque jour vos naissances latentes :
A, noir corset velu des mouches éclatantes
Qui bombinent autour des puanteurs cruelles,

Golfes d'ombre ; E, candeurs des vapeurs et des tentes,
Lances des glaciers fiers, rois blancs, frissons d'ombelles ;
I, pourpres, sang craché, rire des lèvres belles
Dans la colère ou les ivresses pénitentes ;

U, cycles, vibrement divins des mers virides,
Paix des pâtis semés d'animaux, paix des rides
Que l'alchimie imprime aux grands fronts studieux ;

O, suprême Clairon plein des strideurs étranges,
Silences traversés des Mondes et des Anges :
- O l'Oméga, rayon violet de Ses Yeux !


Arthur Rimbaud

We're free, and freedom tastes of reality. Now, this is a dubyas way of putting it. Dubya understands reality.
What I am referring to is this, the green U:
U, cycles, vibrement divins des mers virides, Paix des pâtis semés d'animaux, paix des rides Que l'alchimie imprime aux grands fronts studieux.
This, in fact. We owe Ton Overmars our freedom. He lifted the ban on absinthe.
I like Absente. It is delicate, much more refined than Pernod. Much of the romance behind Absente lies in the preparation ritual. But be moderate, don't be a Dubya.
11:56:23 AM    trackback []


This is obviously a doctored billboard, though the picture of the young Bush seems genuine. But is this the real Bush? He looks like Bush, he talks like Bush, so it is Bush. Nevertheless, this is too good to be true. This is a drunken Bush, apparently on a wedding party. But why no security guards? Because he's with friends? (Reason enough to blend out the interviewer.) It must be Bush on the booze again. I watched the video ten times.
Update: After some heavy research, I found this:
"If George W. Bush ends up in the White House, The Smoking Gun would like to be the first web outfit to formally offer Dubya an artifact for his future presidential library. The Republican's wacky performance in this 1992 wedding video excerpt - shot years after Bush went cold turkey in July 1986 - needs to be preserved for future generations.
The video was shot at the August 29, 1992 wedding of Jamie Weiss, the daughter of Dubya's close friends Mike and Nancy Weiss. Mike, a Lubbock, Texas lawyer and CPA, was Bush's campaign chairman during his first political race (an unsuccessful 1978 congressional bid) and was one of the Texas governor's earliest political appointments."
Now you know all about it.
1:31:14 AM    trackback []

Wednesday, August 4, 2004


A picture named Cartier-Bresson.jpg
Photography owes a lot to Henri Cartier-Bresson. He is famous for his portraits. More of his work.
Writers, artists, revolutionaries, they all wanted to be photographed by him.
He loved people.
8:45:26 PM    trackback []


The name of the game: Team America
The mission: Putting the 'F' back in Freedom.
The place: a theater near you.
12:23:59 PM    trackback []


Senator Robert Byrd on Losing America.
CNN's Wolf Blitzer: "We should have been more sceptical."
AP: "A Japanese man flying to Ohio was arrested after he was seen writing down the words 'suicide bomb'. The flight returned to O'Hare International Airport, where the man was taken into custody and all of the other 120 passengers were taken off the plane and rescreened."
Remember, words are dangerous. Don't ever use the word ...., ...., or .....
Killing, cheating and exorbitant spending are allowed if you belong to the right party.
"The United States could face the prospect of not being able to pay its bills this fall unless Congress raises government borrowing authority now capped at $7.4 trillion, Treasury Secretary John Snow said yesterday.
The Congressional Budget Office is predicting a $477 billion deficit."
10:48:11 AM    trackback []


A picture named GeorgeBlog.jpg
John Kerry has a mac. John Kerry has a blog. So, George W. had to have one as well. Now we all know mac-users are commies. It's a sure sign Dubya is cracking up. Red alert, red alert!
The Onion: "In the interest of national security, President Bush has been asked to stop posting entries on his three-month-old personal web log, acting CIA director John E. McLaughlin said Monday."
10:18:46 AM    trackback []

Tuesday, August 3, 2004


ICH: "... it appears as if this new 'attack on the Christian churches' is just another attempt either by the American CIA or its operatives, or the Mossad of Israel, to paint Islam with terrorism and to split the Muslim and Christian communities in Iraq.
At this point, there is no telling what the U.S. or the Israeli Mossad will do in Iraq in order to foment civil war among the Iraqis and to justify the continuation of an American occupation in Iraq."
12:09:32 PM    trackback []


Newsday: "Turkey's truckers association said Monday it would stop delivering goods to U.S. forces in Iraq, in what appeared to be a direct response to insurgents' brutal, videotaped killing of a Turkish hostage and an attempt to win freedom for two other captives."
12:01:16 PM    trackback []


Haaretz: "Odigo, the instant messaging service, says that two of its workers received messages two hours before the Twin Towers attack on September 11 predicting the attack would happen, and the company has been cooperating with Israeli and American law enforcement, including the FBI, in trying to find the original sender of the message predicting the attack."
Why has nothing been done with this information so far? Did Israel's Mossad know of the impending attack?
11:56:50 AM    trackback []


EUObserver: "The German language council will spend the next couple of months sorting through thousands of entries for the most beautiful word in the German language."
What a pity I am too late with my word: Strampelpeter. Just say it and you're hooked.
11:33:26 AM    trackback []


A picture named Orange.jpg
10:57:35 AM    trackback []


Queen Beatrix, Queen of Orange-Nassau, has sent Bush a congratulatory letter about his decision to make orange the national colour and paint Washington and New York orange. An orange a day keeps the shrink away.
Code Orange is neither here nor there. The most important thing is to keep shopping.
A nation in danger. Or a president in peril?
NY Times: "Much of the information that led the authorities to raise the terror alert at several large financial institutions in the New York City and Washington areas was three or four years old, intelligence and law enforcement officials said on Monday. They reported that they had not yet found concrete evidence that a terrorist plot or preparatory surveillance operations were still under way."
Blow'em up, boys, your orange balloons. Let's party.

10:43:25 AM    trackback []

Monday, August 2, 2004


Seattle Times: "The U.S. attorney in Seattle has used a Patriot Act provision to charge 15 people with smuggling marijuana money out of this country as part of a multimillion-dollar drug operation based in Canada."
10:34:18 AM    trackback []


The Nation: "On November 2 millions of Americans will cast their votes for President in computerized voting systems that can be rigged by corporate or local-election insiders."
Sun-Sentinel: "An embarrassed state Republican Party apologized Thursday for a GOP campaign brochure that urged voters to use absentee ballots, undermining efforts by Gov. Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Glenda Hood to inspire confidence in new touch-screen voting machines.
Democrats, civil-liberties organizations and voter-rights groups have been trying to appeal a state rule that prohibits manual recounts of the touchscreen voting machines, which leave no paper record, and in many cases have been urging voters to use absentee voting as a way to keep such a paper record."
ConcordMonitor: "Charles McGee, the former executive director of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee, admitted yesterday to jamming Democratic party phone lines on election day in November 2002." We also know what they did with the votes and voters in Florida.
10:26:37 AM    trackback []


Independent: "The gap between rich and poor in Britain has widened since Tony Blair became Prime Minister, with glaring regional differences and a rise in the number of people with no savings at all, an influential report on the state of the nation has found.
'Britain is far from being a progressive or just society,' the report says. 'Levels of child poverty continue to surpass those of many of our more successful European partners, and inequalities in income, wealth and well-being remain stubbornly high.'"
Blair's comrade-in-arms is making a mess of it as well. "The White House forecast Friday that the U.S. budget deficit for this year will be a record $445 billion, nearly 20 percent larger than last year's highest-ever." I can still hear him saying, a few years ago, those democrats were only spenders.
IPS: "Despite scandals over human rights abuses and war profiteering, private military contractors are expanding their presence overseas, and may even be involved in helping to draft the next U.S. defence budget.
Last week Congress approved an additional 25 billion dollars for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and seven percent more for the rest of the Pentagon's programmes, in a 417.5-billion-dollar defence bill."
NY Times: "In an echo of the savings and loan industry collapse of the 1980's, the federal agency that insures company pensions is facing a possible cascade of bankruptcies and pension defaults in the airline industry that some experts fear could lead to another multibillion-dollar taxpayer bailout."
10:14:21 AM    trackback []

Sunday, August 1, 2004


Observer: "Cash-strapped British universities are awarding degrees to students who should be failed, in return for lucrative fees, The Observer can reveal.
Lecturers at institutions across the country, including Oxford, London and Swansea, told The Observer the scandal is undermining academic standards, but they cannot speak publicly for fear of losing their jobs."
5:43:33 PM    trackback []


"Thy food shall be the fresh-brook muscles"
Prospero, in Shakespeare's the Tempest, I, 2
No, no such drama for us. What you must keep in mind is that mussels are live animals. When you buy them they must be fresh and alive. I only buy mussels caught the day before, then you'll have less refuse. Prepare them the same day. When I come home from shopping in the afternoon I put them in fresh water, add some sea salt. This way they will expel all sand. Just before putting them in the pot discard all damaged mussels, those that do not snap shut when tapped, also those that swim on the surface of the water, clean the remaining live ones, remove the beards. (Instructions)
A pressure cooker is fine for this (you don't pressure cook them, but the pans are well suited for mussels). Slice some fine onions, some garlic, add a bottom of water in the pan (just enough to put the mussels' 'feet' in it), add the onions, garlic, season a bit, add some white wine. Muscadet is the best wine for mussels. I had a Muscadet de Sèvre et Maine a few days ago, it's the best choice. The wine also gives your mussels their last 'happy hour'. You can use beer instead, but take one that is light in colour (dark or red beer and red wine will make your mussels greyish). Bring the pan to a boil and then put the mussels in. Close the lid, but not tightly.
When the liquid, or rather froth, comes up a first time, close the lid tightly, lift the pan from the heat, shake up and put the pan back on, loosen the lid again. The wine-water mixture should come up three times, each time you give your mussels a good shake.
That will take about five minutes; the mussels will have opened. Do honour to the mussels while preparing them and when you open your pan, a delicious smell will reach your nostrils.
In these regions it is custom to serve French fries with them. But I prefer a salad with a few slices of a baguette with seasoned butter. Drink some Muscadet with this. Scoop up the mussels (and the 'foot' that attaches the mussel to the shell) with a shell half.
When with friends, now it's time to start singing. Le ruacain is sliogáin, is iad go breá beo.
More recipes. Enjoy!
11:09:43 AM    trackback []


A few months ago I bought some precooked seafood from Albert Heijn. That got me a serious food poisoning from which I recovered completely only after a whole week. (And I only got the money back, nothing extra for the trouble!) Seafood should be fresh. The problem with those big retailers is the unhygienic handling and preparing of foods, especially shrimp and mussels. You must prepare these yourself. In all my years I have prepared mussels many, many times and I never was sick from them.
"Mussels have a bad reputation: something mysterious has to be done to them before they can be eaten with safety and no one seems able to tell one exactly what it is." James Laver
Boloney! Read the next posting for all information.
If you don't stick to the rules: "May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows you are dead." (Irish Toast)
10:18:28 AM    trackback []

© Copyright 2004 Hetty Litjens.



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