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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

… 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 […]