How to become a tree hugger

This is my new paraglider. Swiss made, called Epsilon 6 and I am eager to get my first flights under the belt.

Here I am in the Dordogne valley, about a fortnight ago. The wind was quite strong, a bit too strong to be honest. Look at the wind sack, filled like sausage.

There was another paraglider pilot and the chap didn't hesitate a moment to prepare for take-off. He had some difficulties to launch but finally he made it in the air. His example made me decide to go as well.

First, I managed to lift off in spite of the strong wind. Here, I have already gained the first foot of height. Just lifting off.




Unfortunately, I made a mistake. Instead of speeding up (hands up at head level) I was braking (hands at hip level). Consequence, I was flying backwards, and in no time, I was back on Mother Earth

have a look



Being on the ground, the canopy above and behind me, I could not do very much. Du to the wind I was dragged backwards. Two or three seconds later the glider wrapped itself around this young oak tree and I came to rest near its trunk.



My flight was over. All I had to do was to disentangle the canopy and this I did.
It took me about an hour of intense work. A little later another pilot came and helped me from below.



Those photos were made by the wife of the airborne pilot. Thanks to Odile's photographic skills this little incident is thoroughly documented for the posterity. She proposed to send me some pics and I gave her my e-mail address. And she kept her word.



A paraglider is a high-tech machine, made of cloth and lines. To disentangle the stuff from a tree requires patience, lots of it. Don't tear on the lines, don't tear on the canopy. Patience, patience. The idea was to roll the glider right in the tree before getting in down all together. Fortunately, someone was helping me.



I don't even know his name. But we met yesterday before yesterday at the same site and I thanked him again for his help. If I meet him a third time, I'll ask his name. It's useless to propose a glass of beer in a pub, there is absolutely nothing near Mound Mercou. Just trees.

Friendly people.

Number 2 - Escaping death by a hair breadth

It seems I feel like adding one more post on this subject. But not chronologically, let's jump to the 1945 event "The School Yard Slaughter". The last of my near death experiences that happened during the Second World War.

My mom could not stand those daily bombings any longer. My father had a weak heart and was thus not drafted into the armed forces. But in 1945, the last months of this war, they took everybody who was at least able to crawl and he left for the militia (Volkssturm).


Old people reading the announcement that they are being called into the militia

My father gone, she decided to go to Vienna his native town. She thought in Vienna everything was peaceful, no air raids day and night. In this she was totally wrong but she did not know. In Prague our train trip came to an abrupt end. We never made it to Vienna.


/> Beautiful Prague - in peaceful peacetime


I don't remember what happened then, I don't remember but I know there was an air raid, a big one, king size air raid, have a look at Wiki here in case someone wishes to know more about this one. Anyway, I see myself walking through the streets of Prague, the houses on fire to the right and to the left. It was so hot we had to walk in the middle of the street.

Then a army truck picked us up and soon Prague was behind us, we were passing through the country side. Suddenly the driver stopped and even to me, now an old war hand six years old, it was quite clear why. Ahead of us, to the right and to the left side of the road, there were burning cars of all kind, a flaming car cemetery. We all stepped out, our flight ended here.

We were herded by Czechoslovakian or Russian soldiers into a kind of garden park. I think we waited there quite a long time. A soldier came, took some chocolate out of his pocket and looked at me, quite a long time. Finally he made up his mind, ate the chocolate himself and strolled away.

Finally we left the place. A long line of civilians and a few wounded soldiers. After some time we reached a school built of red bricks. They parked us in the square school yard, surrounded on all sides by the school building. On first floor, running all around, was a colonnade.

The armed men who guarded us stood in this colonnade, looking upon us.

Suddenly they started to shoot. A panic brought out, people were running in all directions to escape the bullets. We, too. There was a nurse tending to a wounded soldier: her throat was half ripped away and she was standing there. Our eyes met.

In a corner right under the colonnade were cellar doors and windows. Someone smashed those windows and my mom and myself found refuge there. At least they could not reach us from above. Our cellar was packed to capacity. We were standing there like sardines in a tin.

At some distance from where we were standing I hear a whimper: "water, water, water please". And then some else answered: "no way, he'll die anyway". Some minutes later we were standing knee-deep in ice cold water.

So we left the cellar. The shooting had stopped............

----------------------------------------------

Yesterday, I had my first real flight with the new Swiss made paraglider. The wind was very strong, too strong. While starting, I was lifted up some meters, came down again and was dragged backwards on the ground. Then the canopy was stopped by a small oak tree wrapping itself around. I had nothing, not even a scratch. But it took me more than an hour to get the paraglider back to Mother Earth.

Escaping death by a hair breadth

Some weeks ago I saw at the television a show called "Incredible but true". The last video in this series was about a lady in the United States who had escaped death several times. She even had a near miss on Sept. 11, 2001. Instead of boarding one of those airplanes hijacked by Al-Qaida, she took one earlier or the next one. I don't remember. I think she had this kind of luck six or seven times.

That made me think about my own life. It's a fact, I have escaped death by a hair breadth at least six times. Just for entertainment an to continue filling this blog, here is what happened, chronologically.

1943 - Berlin: an incendiary bomb fell right near my bedside

1944 - Berlin: nearly roasted alive in a bomb shelter

1945 - Prague: the school yard slaughter

1976 - Brussels: near miss by 3 or 4 inches, stupid car accident

1986 - Granada/Spain, Serra Nevada: avoided falling down an iced over mountain slope

1993 - French Alps, Winter holiday, missed a frontal car accident on sludgy
road

1993 to 2010: over 520 flights in a paraglider: nothing. Life is great!

1943 - at that far-away time, my parents and yours truly were living in an outer Berlin suburb, more trees than houses. Nevertheless, bombs were falling nearly every night. Thus we took part in the war, potential collateral. Going to bed, prior to sleeping, meant that my grandma was reading a story to me. She was a bit deaf and did not hear the sirens warning of a new air raid and the signal to run for the bunker. Ours was in the garden. But I didn't tell her because I wanted to hear the end of the story. Then the bombers came, I still hear the overhead drone but I continued to keep mum.

Then it happened: a big black bomb landed right near my bed, between me and my grandma. It must have crossed the roof, then the first floor and last not least the roof of my room without exploding. A man living upstairs burst in, grabbed the heavy bomb and threw it out of the window. Without opening it! It exploded outside, yellow flames of a phosphor bomb. It burned a large part of our hedge, mostly wild roses.




This is the first of those unhealthy happenings and one of my first childhood souvenirs. I cannot help thinking that I remember this mostly because this unknown hero who saved us did not open the window prior to throwing the bomb out. I still see this today as if it was yesterday.

Those other events? Maybe another time. This one is already long enough and most people don't appreciate reading long text on the screen. Me, too.

Sports journalists - masters of empty talk

As I said in my post about the Olympics, I finished to dislike those journalists who talk and talk and talk without saying anything worthwhile.

As I could not stop them I thought it might be fun to copy this stuff. Those comments I have captured were originally given in French or German. Here is the English translation. It's up to you to compare this to the homegrown verbiage in the English speaking countries.

- He is the first: mission accomplished

- He has hatred and rage: he must get a medal

- Damned: he has been denied a good starting gate

- That's the Dark Lord

- Our Rock and Roll skier

- He is the little nervous one

- Enormous, enormous, enormous

- I am struck with shock

- this is monstrous, monstrous. Monstrous I am saying

- Monstrous, he is skiing on the roof of the world

- the guy is an alien

- push the accelerator, damn it

- Yelling: enormous, immense, monstrous, a genious

- She took over the controls. (A little later): she has been disqualified

- one gold medal is not enough for her

- Let's concentrate on the competitors

- He has got a problem in his head

- She is flying away and the others remain nailed down.

- You made us dream

- The guy advances as if he had been stung by a scorpion

- He was completely flat

- She got gold, I cannot believe it

- And now, suddenly, she is back in business

- It had to be done, he looks disgusted, but it is good anyway

- The greatest skier on planet Earth

- The Italian curse continues now for 18 years

- They have a monstrous female squad

- She is 19th, well, we have to look how the others are doing

- The public is totally charmed

Olympic Winter Games

Being a couch potato means, it seems, relaxing in front of the telly while others run around. Well, right now, I am potatoing quite a lot, looking at sports activities I rarely see in real life.

The vast majority of the athletes have friendly, open faces, a pleasure to look at. In this they differ markedly from other people in show business like singers, artists, celebs or fashion workers who feature several layers of paint to hide wrinkle inducing life style......

The time lag between Vancouver and here is terrible. When they start to get going, let's say around 10 a.m. it is 7 o'clock over here, supper time. Thus I record the events on tape and look at it next day.

I am German though living in France and this gives me a split personality, these days. I like to see the French win against anyone except against the Germans. When my wife feels differently I have to make a mental effort to understand. That's particularly strong and irritating like in Biathlon/Nordic skiing where athletes from the two countries compete against each other.

Unlike F1 car racing or professional football (soccer) where the players feature brazenly brand names like Samsung, Siemens, Toyota etc. etc. on their clothes, the olympic athletes are probably forbidden to do so. But all is not lost. Their gloves come from somewhere, someone made them and thus I see with pleasure the camera dwelling for some seconds on those gloves to show the manufacturer's name printed on them in huge black letters. Same for the shoes and helmets, the lower parts of skate boards the riders insist on showing.

Downhill racing is one of my favorites. Maria Riesch and Lindsay Vonn. You need tremendous courage to do this at over 100 km/h (70 miles/h), especially when the slope is partially iced over. Normal people hesitate even to hit the side walk when some snow is falling.............



I wonder if the winter games are being shown in Muslim countries like Egypt, Yemen, Iran or Pakistan. I'll try to find out. In these hot countries women are frequently dressed in black curtain stuff (obituary quality) with a piece of cloth hanging over her nose. There is a slit for the eyes: they must have a vision similar to a tank driver or a submarine operator in WWII, looking through the snorkel.....

As the days pass by I come to dislike journalists more and more. They talk and talk and talk, say what I see anyway, make corny jokes and have a marked tendency to fake turning hysterical with high-speed talking when a beloved national approaches the finishing line.

Sometimes, assisting those know-everything-journalists, there is a person who has done the activity herself or himself. What a difference: more facts, more humility, no digressions, no lame-brain language.




When the Games started, there was a lot of talking about the "First Nation" people, meaning those Indians who lived in the Americas before Christobal Columbo (ha, ha, ha) hit the place five hundred years ago. Well, I don't like this First Nation word. Must have been coined by some communications wizard because it sounds like a publicity stunt.

Anyway, looking at some of these FN-people being interviewed is was somehow flabbergasted; they look like people over here in Central France, like you and me. I remember well those black and white photos made in the second part of the 19th Century showing Indians in North America. They looked like Mongols, people from Central Asia. Nothing to do with those Sally this and Johnny that, McDo-fed European looking people. Maybe there is some relation to the US habit who call everyone black who is not rosy-white. Or the Chinese, Koreans, Japanese who are called yellow though they have exactly the same skin color as I have. Another interesting riddle to humanity to find out. Some explaining comments from my readers would be welcome.

ON THE DOWNWARD SLOPE

Last weekend we have been invited for dinner by a couple living in a nearby village. He is a farmer and his wife works as a medical secretary in the next town. Three children under ten.

I don't really remember what we were eating but what he told me left his mark. Pierre's wife is a city girl but his family were peasants in this area since the end of the 16th Century.

That's a huge span of time. In AD 1588 Queen Elisabeth I defeated the Spanish Armada and Pierre's ancestor was the first to make his mark in the local church at his wedding.

Pierre is a dairy farmer, meaning he has around 50 cows and he makes his living by selling the milk to the local processing plant at a price fixed by the Agricultural department of European Union.

The cows over here, Salers breed, look splendid. See this website in English

When Pierre's father retired his elder brother took over the farm, the cows and the fields. He told me "you must have the farming job in your blood, working with animals. Otherwise you do something else".

Pierre has the professional qualifications, he had been at a farmer's college, but this job needs a lot of land, some cows to start with, machinery, a barn. When he started "peasenting" in 1981 the price of milk was such that he considered to be able to make a decent living.

So he rented the land and bought some fields whenever he make some extra profit. There are no lazy farmers. They get up at dawn and come back from work after sunset. And in Summer they work frequently late at night, to make hay or cut the corn.

Sometimes, during glorious warm Summer evenings, I see the headlights of their tractors and hear the distant rumble of the machinery. Sometimes till 11 pm! A lazy farmer becomes a has-been in no time. And they always work alone, sometimes with their wife, but never, never, I have seen a peasant here employing a paid farm hand.

Over the years the price of milk decreased, slowly but steadily. For a year now he sells his milk for less money than he needs to produce it.

He is covered in debt, about 20,000 Euro (about 30,000 US Dollar). Last year, we had a splendid Spring and Summer but for him that meant not enough rain. The maize (corn) was withering on the stem and he had to buy additional food.

This year 2010 might be his last one as a farmer. The price of milk does not and will not go up, he can work 18 hours per day, this would not clean up his debt, only add to it. His wife has to work, it has become vital.

Quitting farming means the debts have to be serviced and he dreads that moment of truth. He fears that their house - not yet fully paid - might get lost, too.

It should be said Pierre's situation is in no way extraordinary. There are thousands of farmers in many UE countries facing the same situation. They work and work and it is not good enough. And they produce food, there is not enough of it worldwide, but they cannot meet ends and many of them will go under.

When the earth quake hit Haiti, hours after it the governments worldwide sent airplanes with all sorts of help. And hundreds of NGO's and other professional do-gooders were crowding the place. But in this case I am talking about, nobody seems to be concerned. They face silent death.

Science and scientists

About 40 years ago the physicist Vera Rubin made a strange discovery: considering the weight (mass) of all stars belonging to the Andromeda Galaxy it turned too fast. In order to be clear, have a look at this merry-go-round. It turns at the right speed. But if it would turn ten times faster, the little chairs with the kids would first be horizontal and some seconds or minutes later the chains would break. Same for the outer stars of Andromeda. At the measured merry go round speed the galaxy should disintegrate!


The center of all those galaxies behaves in accordance with the laws of gravitation, see Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. The problem is thus only with the outer portion who does not fit in.

To make it simple (that's my specialty) there are two solutions: Einstein's law of gravitation has to be modified - because only partially correct - or some extra weight has to be added to those galaxies so as to make them behave as they should.

Thus the theory of the black matter has been invented. And as time goes by, the theory of the black matter turns into a fact. Right now, the black invisible stuff is staple food for 99,9 percent of all astronomers. And it should be said that the black matter has one big advantage: no need to tamper with Albert Einstein's findings. And that's important because he is something like a God of Science.

Cast doubt on Holy Albert's theory? Forget it. Let's better gorge those galaxies with some extra weight - in fact about 95 percent, to be added to the 5 percent of conventional matter we know - and the scientists can avoid to rock the boat, to create fuss, avoid the shit to hit the fan, to be considered a lame brain half-wit.




That is the spiral galaxy M81. I suppose this one, too, turns too fast but what a beauty. And here, last not least, is our advent wreath, made by my wife to hang above the chimney till year's end. A home-made galaxy.

Blogging and living

Already one month since my last post. But there is trouble in the air. It started in early September. At around 5.30 pm the internet disconnects and revival is around 8.30 am next day. Naturally, I complained at the Call Center but these peple don't seem bother, I could have "pissé dans un violon", could have pissed into a violin. They don't care as long as I keep paying my dues.

I might change the internet provider though this means my email address changes, too. The very near future will tell.

Instead of blogging I was working hard to construct a new gate and finally installed the thing. The installation alone took me one day from morning to evening. I am dedicated and enthusiastic but only moderately gifted.



This gate installed and being quite high, it might discourage people to jump over it within the framework of their municipal duties. This happened from time to time with the old gate; like the water metering man. The guy who looks at the water gauge in the garden and writes down how much we consumed during the year and how much we have to pay............

And that's not all. Our garden is gently inclined everywhere. In fact the place constitutes the ultimate proof that planet Earth is not flat but round. Come here and have a look and be convinced. Thus I decided to create at least one flat spot for a pleasant summer breakfast or dinner under three spreading birch trees.

Thus I started a week ago to flatten a circle of about 4 m (15 feet) diameter. Big job, it needed about 3 or 4 cubic meter (about 106 to 143 cubic feet according to Wiki and Google). Then, on top of this, I took grass from other parts of the garden to plant it on this food intake and friendship gathering spot . Thus it will be operational when heavy sunshine is back again, somewhere next year.



There is another project in the making. Have a look at this work bench. I bought the drawings in the USA (the economy is humming again thanks to guys like me) and now I am busy trying to understand the stuff and computing those inches into centimeters and millimeters. The wood is already ordered as well as a planing-surfacing machine and some special router dips. Last not least I bought an INCRA T-rule, from the USA as well (the $ is down, the € is up, thank you). All this will keep me busy during winter when the sun is shining exclusively on the upper side of the clouds.






All this to explain why I was not very assiduous on the blogging front. One post every fortnight, that should be cruise speed. Subject no object. The next post might be about science, astronomy and intellectual honesty. Could be some of my esteemed reader would prefer this to router dips and planing machines. Though, let me insist, there is not very much that gives so much pleasure as the achievement of beautiful precise woodworking. Nobody should miss this.

In the midst of life - Slide-show-girl

It all started on a bench in a public park. I was in my mid-thirties and it was Summer.

Sitting on that bench, I was busy sorting out and inspecting color slides in order to put them in specific order for projection. A park bench is certainly not the best place to do this but I needed open air.

While doing this and fuzzing around with the slides a girl came and sat down near me and started to read a book. From time to time she stopped and looked into the distance and we came to talk. We talked a lot, probably more than an hour and before leaving I had an invitation for the next day to come to her place and show her my slides.

This I did - I mean the coming - but, as far I can remember, I never really showed her those slides. But I stayed there for the night and next morning at breakfast she told me her story.

Ten years ago she was going to be married. Everything was arranged, papers, the ceremonies at the town hall and in the church, dinner, everything. Three days before the fixed date her fiancé met her somewhere in town and told her that everything is off. No reason given, no explanation, just the statement, "I'll not see you again in this life" he told her.

Naturally, she tried this and that but to no avail. She never managed to find out what has happened and she had to face it alone.

This kind of broke her. For ten years her life was limited to her studio apartment, going out only for work and for buying food and other necessities. "What did you do all this time", I asked her. "Nothing, just sitting there or playing the piano for hours".

"Play something for me" I said, "Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, whatever you like. "No, she said, and then she added "I play only Dvorak". I asked why but there was no clear answer, as far as I remember.

During the week that followed we saw each other nearly every day. "You are the very first person that came here after my failed marriage", she told me. But she must have been ready for something else some time before. She had published an advertisement in a newspaper asking for someone ready to go with her to the USA for a months' holiday, on shared expenses. And she got a positive answer because there was a Dutchman ready to go with her. Departure next week.

"Don't worry, she told me, I'll be back in no time".

The first half of that month I was away, too, crossing Iceland with a bunch of backpackers. Coming home, I started waiting. At the appropriate time, probably a little too early, I made my first phone call. Nothing, not yet back. Some days later, I called again and was amazed to hear "no connection under this number". This same evening I went to her place: her name on the apartment was gone. Then I managed to talk to an old lady living next door. "Oh, she moved out some days ago."

She had vanished without leaving a trace. I was not broken but certainly shattered. I talked it over with some friends and she became "the slide-show-girl" whenever the subject was raised.

More than a year passed and one day, in an inner city street, I hear "Bonjour, Georges" : my slide-show-girl! She told me Part 2 of the story. During those holidays in the United State States they decided to live together and back in town she married right away. When I met her she was certainly six months pregnant.

Happy end.

Democracy - an export product?

Being a regular reader of Newsweek, I remember quite well those days and weeks right after the invasion of Iraq. Democracy will finally brought to the Middle East, I was reading. There was one argument brought up again and again. "We brought democracy to Germany after the war and it worked so well. Why shouldn't it be the same in Iraq".

Holy innocence. These journalists, professional line scribblers, just don't know what they are talking about. Could be, too, that they were simply repeating what they gathered "from well informed sources".

Six years later nothing has come out of those noble efforts but democracy is still very much on the official agenda.

Bringing democracy to a country like Afghanistan or Iraq is like trying to teach step dance to a paralytic in a one-week-crash-course. I don't wish to say this is bound to fail. No! It is downright crazy.

Democracy is a frail plant, it needs constant care from everybody and its main ingredient is the rule of law. And the rule of law is only possible if the vast majority of the people concerned is honest and law abiding and not only when a police officer is breathing down their neck.

When the US forces took Baghdad in 2003, for several weeks or months there was no authority in the town. Saddam's forces of evil were disbanded and the Americans did not care and did not bother. They only guarded the Oil Ministry (and the oil fields in the country side, sure). And what happened? Hell broke loose, thousands of citizen started to loot and steal wherever possible. Any object not solidly embedded in concrete, museums, shops, administrations were looted and gutted. With people like this democracy is impossible. They need a benevolent dictatorship and naturally, that's what they get and deserve.

Next stop Afghanistan. There is the saying that the quality and the seriousness of a democracy is not shown during voting but during counting.

Afghanistan is not really a country or a nation. It is a big tribal area called Afghanistan and its people are dedicated poppy growers. The smallest entity is the family and at its head is the husband. Women and children are kind of property and if they know their place and behave accordingly everything goes well like in all families. If the family gets desperately poor - as is happening now - the master sells a girl.

Next comes the tribal chief. This guy is something like God's representative on earth, he alone gives security and rule of law, the tribal law meaning Muslim Sharia, the religious law. You don't vote against the Chief. If the Chief decides for superior reasons that he opts for socialism, conservatism, liberalism or any other -ism for money or power, the tribe votes along those lines. And in case the Chief has a new inspiration and switches - for superior reasons - from one ism to another ism, or from friend to foe, the tribal members change, too. That is their duty and their honor.

So, in a nutshell, let's keep democracy at home. Let's improve it here because we are far from perfect, everybody knows that. We should always be ready to give advice and a lend a helping hand like training specialists, opening our universities, activities like that. But, please, no more voting in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia or elsewhere, sponsored by Western nations and paid by its tax payers.