w o r d s

Beautiful, melancholic video of the demolition of the Durham Hotel, Durham, North Carolina, in 1975.

video by Billie Mann

Over the years, in conversations about sports, I have always identified myself as a biker - a mountain biker. Not a particularly competitive specimen, I lack the colorful outfit and fancy bike, but I do enjoy very much taking my 17-year-old Simonelli bike on a challenging single-track out in the woods. We’re just a 10-Minute drive down the road from a very nice 7-mile loop at Little River Park, and I try my best to hit the trail regularly.

The problem is that the park manager closes the MTB trails when it is too wet, to prevent damage to the trail and the forest. That is fine - I support that. So I began to just go for a run when the bike trails are closed. There are two nice hiking trails in the park, and they are great for running. The trails wind through a different part of the park, and run along the creeks and rivers in the back part of the park. They offer a totally different view of the land as the bike trails, which climb up a small hill.

So today I ran 5 Miles on those trails, and it was great! Last night thunderstorms moved through the area, and dumped a 3/4 inch (2 cm) of rain. Right now the redbuds and the dogwoods are blooming, and the other trees are breaking out in an ever-so-tender green. It’s been getting pretty warm, and it was 85 Deg. F (29°C) and the humidity this morning was at least 500 percent. Still, it was a fun run and the forest was really beautiful.

The US and the EU have reached a deal to liberalize transatlantic air travel. It may seem like a good idea to allow US airlines and EU airlines to send their planes to any destination in Europe and the US. It will increase competition and presumably give consumers more choice and lower prices. And they call this “Open Skies.”

In reality this deal looks to me like it will choke the already crowded sky even more. This deal is unlikely to provide me with a direct Lufthansa connection to Stuttgart from RDU or other smaller airports in the US to smaller airports in Europe. It will, however, increase traffic congestion at already extremely busy airports, like Atlanta, JFK and O’Hare, and it will increase the air traffic across the Atlantic. While evidence is mounting that air pollution is dangerously changing the global climate, this deal will put even more jets into the sky, depleting fossil fuel reserves and pumping greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.

The German Constitutional Court ruled (de) that symbols that use the Nazi schwastika as part of a clear, unambigous ANTI-Nazi message is legal in Germany.

WOW. I was a bit worried about this.

It would have been quite ironic if people who clearly express an Anti-Nazi sentiment had been criminally prosecuted for wearing the illegal Nazi symbol. Especially as there is a well-documented resurgence of Nazi- and White-supremacist ideology in Germany.  AND after it was revealed that members of the police security detail for a former member of the Jewish council in Germany were Nazi sympathisers (de).

Durham is supposedly number 8 of the best places to live in the US:

Yay, Durham - the birthplace of … uh … [CTRL]+[ALT]+[Delete]!??

In 1947, Ghana was the first nation in sub-Saharan Africa to shake the yoke of colonialism and take its destiny in it’s own hands. It joined a group of only seven other, independent African nations: Ethiopia, Liberia, Libya, Morocco, the Sudan, Tunisia, and Egypt (then known as the United Arab Republic). In 50 years of independence this vibrant nation has seen ups and downs, coups and counter-coups, but also long periods of political and economic stability. Today, this stronghold of Pan Africanism is a country permeated by a particular sense of independence and pride in its heritage. In the last 15 years, Ghana has had free elections and a peaceful government transition from Jerry Rawlings to John Kufuor. Ghana is far from perfect. But today this diverse nation is a hopeful example and a beachhead for democracy in West Africa.

Happy Birthday, Ghana!

[update 3/7: pictures of the parade and a report of Kufuors’ speech]

… accidentally. In the night from Wednesday to Thursday, 170 armed Swiss troops crossed into the tiny neighboring Principality of Liechtenstein. They got lost in bad weather in the Alps during a training exercise and strayed a mile into the unarmed principalities sovereign territory. Scrambling to prevent any escalation, both countries immediately launched diplomatic efforts and were able to peacefully resolve this incident.

Oh boy - that was a close one! :)

BTW: Liechtenstein is the only country left with direct historical continuity back to the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (The First Reich).