People and faces

A fortnight ago my wife told me we need a break. So we took off for a long weekend in Périgord, just 2 1/2 hours' drive from here.

Instead of making photos as I did during all my life, I am trying to get the same thing done per video. Life is movement - at least for most of us - and thus a photo is something artificial, same as those black and white pictures made 25 years ago.

It must be said however, making a good video is darn difficult. So, please, look at this with leniency.

The part of the young woman sitting in the grass smoking and reading near her little dog is endearing though. And near the end, there is that Arab woman who looks quite forlorn, somehow lost in a strange country. The little beautiful girl munching a sandwich. At the end yours truly.





My camera has an optical zoom of 12 and a digital zoom of 48. That is a lot and I can look at people without being seen. I don't bother them and they don't bother me. I am not a peeping Tom, kind of voyeur. It's just I like to see people go through their everyday life. So there is nothing special here, just life. Your life, my life.

Is there a God ? - What governs our lives?

My parents must have been of the cautious kind. Because, contrary to custom, I was not baptized when I landed over here. Thus I remained in neutral gear till about fourteen. As I am born in Berlin, it was natural to become a Protestant, as was everybody else around me.

Thus I asked to get "communion" like all the others and then it came out I had never been baptized. So I was baptized on Saturday and got communion on Easter Sunday, between 13 and 14 years of age.

Then something strange happened. Right as I was sitting there in church during the communion service and I fell out with religion. "What am I doing here?" I asked myself. "There is nothing, fair chance it is all a kind of hogwash".

Since then, I was always interested in the subject though I never talked about it. First time someone mentioned the riddle of human destiny to me was by reading Somerset Maugham's novel "Of Human Bondage".

Regarding religion, no need to defend the idea of evolution. These firmly established facts are now under attack from the creationists, most of them but not all coming from the United States. Can't help thinking that creationism is linked to a hidden political agenda and has nothing to do with the search for truth. So, let's forget about this. I'll file "creationism" next to the "Flat Earth Society".

Everything around us - ourselves included - evolve in accordance with this iron law of evolution. But it should be said not the fittest and the strongest survive - as Darwin thought - but those that are best adopted to circumstances. You take shameful advantage of the situation and you have a fair chance to thrive. SO LET'S BE FLEXIBLE.

Unfortunately - as I see it - that's not the only law. There is another one and it is called chance. You do all the right stuff, you are strongest and best adopted and then bam! The roof is falling on your head.

These random happenings occur all the time. You can be born rich, intelligent and in good health and you can be born poor, not very bright and with a defect in your genes. And so it goes on till we are dead. We all know this in our hearts but I suppose we don't like to admit it as a fact of life.

Thus our longing for a good, benevolent God who who gives us a helping hand, from time to time and set matters straight for us.

As Plato the Greek philosopher said 2500 years ago: "Be kind, for everybody you meet is fighting a hard battle".

We desperately ask for a happy end, Hollywood style. Thus the idea of a paradise, a perpetual happy end to look forward to after all that shit during life. By the way, it is typical for our Western outlook that paradise is very much on the agenda among the faithful but nobody talks about hell and purgatory any more...................





Laudate Dominum omnes gentes;
Laudate eum, omnes populi.
Quoniam confirmata est
Super nos misericordia ejus,
Et veritas Domini manet in aeternum.
Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto.
Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper.
Et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.


Does that mean everybody should try to become a cat and all the others are mice, just good to be devoured if they can't help it? Some people seem to think this and try to live it out. But this Law of Chance I mentioned here above is truly democratic and preys upon everybody, high and low. Look at Bernie Maddoff, the mad dog of shares and charities.............

To finish this long story, here are a few lines of the poem "On the devine" from
Johann Wolfgang Goethe

Let man be noble,
Generous and good
For that alone
Distinguishes him
From all the living
beings we know
.................
.................
Let the noble man
Be generous and good,
Tirelessly achieving
What is just and useful

(here, the entire poem in English and in German)

Last not least: without religion, we all would have missed Händel's Messiah and Mozart's "Laudate Dominum", those Gothic cathedrals standing nearly everywhere in Europe as well as some truly outstanding humans, the first one coming to my mind is Jesus himself. That should not be forgotten.

First nightingale this year

Yesterday we had a hot Summer day over here. And today, Saturday, 25th April, back to early March with lots of rain, pouring down continuously.

Outside, in the garden, I hear the booming voice of Mr. Nightingale. The rain does not stop him. As every year, I try to locate the elusive bird. In vain. I have never succeeded to see him. Not once in all those ten years we are living in this green paradise.





Then it occurred to me that I could at least make a recording of his song. Thus the video does not amount to very much but you can hear him, loud and clear. Let's hope he'll get his wife not too early because I imagine that will stop him singing.

TV crime series - Comparison USA and Great Britain

Like many of my contemporaries, I watch the crime series of the moment. Here in France, you can choose between several different ones, each day of the year.

There are those made in France. But considering the number of channels available, there are series made in USA, made in Great Britain, made in Germany plus a tiny little sprinkling of the others from Sweden, Italy, Belgium.

Considering that this is a blog in English language (at least I try to do my best), let's talk about those made in the United States and those coming from our northern neighbors, the Brits.

What do they have in common, these series made in USA and Great Britain? Absolutely nothing because here all those actors talk in French exclusively!

The idea is generally accepted that the Americans and the Brits have a lot of common outlooks, kind of shared values (though the notion of "values" has fallen in disrespect, lately). Thus it occurred to me to compare these series with regard to the differences.

Because there are differences, big ones.

Here are the two series from England:

1. Inspector Barnaby

2. Inspector Lewis


And here are just three from the United States:

1. Bones

2. CSI Miami

3. Navy NCIS

In a nutshell, I would say the English ones are homely and the Americans are gorgeous.

In NCIS each photo made of a corpse produces a sound, something like slapping a wet towel on a drum. Slap, slap, slap. And invariably, they are gripping those huge McDo plastic cups filled with coffee or CocaCola. Could be those paper plastic cups are not from McDo but from Starbucks, I don't know but they are huge, king size big. And they continue to bring one to each other as a sign of sympathy or friendship.

Our two English cops drink, too. But they are inside or outside a pub, having a beer and when they meet a suspect, they are frequently offered a cup of tea and some biscuits.

Chief Inspector Barnaby and Lewis never carry any weapon and their criminal investigation is carried out without any violence. However, in the Barnaby series, dead bodies are aplenty. It's never one stiff but mostly three, four or occasionally even five. And these English village people hate each others guts red hot. But violence, no sir.

Nothing to do with the Americans. They live with their pistol. In NCIS, that Mossad girl seems even to sleep with her gun under the pillow and they keep it under the bed or at the night table when making love.

But the biggest difference is their looks. Dr. Brennan (Bones) is a real beauty. And that goes for all the others, too. With the exception of Bruce, the athletic FBI cop and the sexy artist Angela, all others are high-end scientists but their looks somehow do not correspond to their activity. Too much beauty, splendid make up, even when they are a bit smeared or dirty, they are beautifully dirty.

In CSI Miami it's even worse. The boss, Horatio, very impressive character, is strangely ugly, he could be an albino. But all the others have those aggressive good looks. There is this doctor whose job is to cut up dead bodies. But she looks like a bar hostess, trying to make you drink costly Champagne and there is a male scientist who could be a South-American pimp or a Bolivian drug dealer.

I would not like to meet this good looking chap at dusk in an empty street!

Those two inspectors from Britannia are middle aged, wear rumpled clothes. They are neither good looking nor ugly. And their associates, Sargent Troy, Sargent Hopkins or Hathaway are cast in the same mould. Mr. Barnaby's wife looks a bit worn out, though cheerful and their daughter seemed ugly to me in the beginning. Now, after three years, I am accustomed to her. She looks good in her own way. Sargent Hathaway is a former student of theology and quotes Shelley, Shakespeare and Latin authors at unsuspected moments. I like that.

There is a meaning behind those differences.

Adventure in Afghanistan - slumdog travels east

Afghanistan has never been a land for tourists. Thus Oxford-Johnny and myself only got a kind of transit visa with a 14-day-limit.

We arrived and left Herat, near the Iranian border and continued to push forward to Kandahar, right in the middle of this strange country. We were in a hurry because 14 days is not much when hitchhiking, meaning www waiting, waiting, waiting. Here the story begins.

At that time, Kandahar was somehow an American zone of influence. Thus the city had a slight Western tinge to it, shops , restaurants with chairs and selling beer, things like that. Thus, instead of camping somewhere, we went to a cheap hotel and stayed there.

Next day we set out in the morning to hit the road. You don't start to hitchhike in the middle of a town and it took us quite a long time with our heavy backpack to reach the outskirts of Kandahar and the road leading to Kabul.

Road is just of way of talking. It was a large dirt path with wide and deep potholes everywhere. So we were squatting by the roadside, waiting for a car. Since Turkey, we never met many cars or lorries but those we saw invariably stopped.

Noon was coming and going, the heat was getting severe but no car, no lorry, no truck, nothing. At about three in the afternoon I got upset and desperate. "Johnny", I said to my pal, "we have to do something, otherwise we'll stay here for all eternity".

In a Third World Country, the only authority worthwhile is the police. So we trudged back to town and went straight to the Kandahar Police Headquarters. Johnny did most of the talking "take us to your leader", he told the cop in rags sporting a gleaming rifle in front of the entry door.

Inside, we explained our problem. "You see, Sir, we just can't find the British and German embassy! We must go there to ask for money. And we know there is one here in Kabul but nobody could show us the way". Naturally, the police officer told us "this is Kandahar, not Kabul" and then "In Kandahar, no embassy".

We explained in length that we thought we were already in Kabul and that we must go there in order to fetch our money. "What can you do for us? Please help us".

And he did. First, he walked us to the hotel where we stayed the previous night and ordered the manager to put up with us till next morning. The hotel manager was disgusted. He had to serve us food for free by order of police. First thing he did was to empty the room completely to show us who is the master of the premises.

We were used to rough it. Having a good meal under our belts we spread our sleeping bags and slept soundly till next morning waiting for our free breakfast. At around noon, the police officer came back and took us to the the bus station for a free trip to Kabul.

We thanked him effusively, he did a great job on us two leeches. At the bus station, we were to ride to Kabul in two buses. I suppose he did not want to put too much strain on the drivers who were probably the owners and who were under order to ferry us to Kabul for free.

The bus started around 5 pm because of the intense heat during day time. Sitting on the roof of the bus, the wind dried up my face in no time. I really felt my skin turning into parchment. Next to me were sitting some Afghanis about my age. "Want some snap". I said no because the stuff smelled foul and was green. Till now, I don't know what "snap" is. It had a smell like synthetic shit, really, no kidding. Was it dope?

Eventually, the bus stopped somewhere near a shag-like restaurant. For me there was another problem. I was hungry like everybody else. But my free ride hinged on the fact that I had no money.

The idea to have very little money, something like the minimum does not sound convincing in a desperately poor country like this one. Furthermore, lots of the passengers were carrying some kind of weapon with them. So I stayed mum near the bus waiting for things to happen (or not).

Then some nice and friendly people people invited me into the restaurant. Sure, I was thankful but very much annoyed and uneasy, too. Annoyed with myself and I wowed to avoid such ambiguous situations in the future.

The bus ride was an adventure in itself. The cooling system of the motor had sprung a leak and fresh water had to be added all the time. Thus the motor slave* sat or better straddled the motor servicing it during the ride with a iron watering can, spilling more than half of the precious stuff.

We drove through the night, desert country. Never seen a sky like that, clean deep blue, the Milky Way clearly visible!

We arrived in Kabul around noon. A bit shaky, I felt every bone inside and was hungry, too . Early in the morning we had a second stop for ritual prayer washing and breakfast. But I refused to be invited again pretending to have stomach trouble.


*Motor slave: I met them again and again in Iran and Afghanistan when I managed to pick up a truck. Normally, these young men of about my age were always clad in greasy rags and made the trip sitting somewhere behind and when off duty outside on the running board. They had to do all the dirty work and when we were eating with the driver he was never invited to join us.

Every year again - preparing of firewood

Some of my blogger friends suggested to go on with some more chapters about my travels in far away lands. Well, I'll do this, but not right now.

Life being as it is, each winter I have to buy and prepare firewood. And this job keeps me busy outside, not much time left for computering or blogging.

Here is the description how I proceed. Enters Mr. Bornet who supplies the tree trunks in lengths of 2 meters,(about 7 feet or 3 yards - and here the 100 Dollar question: is there any chance the US-Americans decide to switch over to meters and liters, to square meters and cubic meters like nearly everyone else on our planet Earth? Even the English did so, though reluctantly, I admit.

We need about 16 m3 (cubic meter) of firewood per year and sorry, I am unable to compute this into cubic feet. This batch is for the Winter 2010/11, so as to enable the logs to dry peacefully.

To see the video, don't click on the photo, click on the writing under the pic.



Have a look, please. May I present you Mr. Bornet. If ever someone comes here to settle permanently, this is the guy to approach for firewood. Admire how he handles his grapnel. He is really a wizard with this contraption and could draw you a tooth with this in no time. He told me it took him 6 weeks to handle those eight levers correctly. Having done the job, see how he manages to drive backwards. The video ends when he disappears behind the house. But that is only half of the distance. He has to circle round our cherry tree, go down the lane and reach the street by passing the gate, leaving only about 15 to 20 cm (half a foot) on each side.

Three cheers to Mr. Bornet, king of precision backwards driving.


Chapter too

To see the video, don't click on the photo, click on the writing under it!!



Now I have to get busy with my chain saw to cut those trunks into lengths of 50 cm (about 1 1/2 feet). Tiresome job, nevertheless, because some of the trunks are really heavy and I have to move them out of the sawing area first and then to my log splitting machine. The sawing area behind me must be free so that I can jump backwards at a seconds' notice when the log heap suddenly decides to collapse or to crumble, whatever you prefer, anyway, kind of garden avalanche. Bad for health.

Well, right now, all this is just beginning. One of the next posts will show my wonderful log splitter and the self-made-high-rise-log-wall. Great things to come. Stay tuned everybody and try to remain interested in non political slightly boring subjects.

Homage to English language - smile a bit

Some years ago, I went to Northern Wales for a hiking holiday. In one of those boutiques where they sell stuff for tourists, I found this advertisement of old.

Let me tell you I love it. Such funny phonetic English. Whenever some guests come here for a visit and knowing more than the basics, I cannot resist to show this text.

Success and appreciation is by no means guaranteed. Some don't find this readable at all, others don't care and don't see why they should bother reading this when a Martini, Whiskey or Muscat is waiting.

I just hope some of you like and appreciate Roger Giles' message to humanity.

For easier reading, try the second photo.









In fact, I found it in a little town near Carnarvon Castle. For those who are not familiar with British history, it's there that the English created the Prince of Wales. A very clever publicity stunt invented 700 years ago to convince the Welsh to stop fighting and become part of England.

Letter to the editor - refused by Newsweek

Normally, I am not very keen on writing letters to the weekly I read. But in this case, something rankled.

Many economists, I think, can be compared to psychologists or meteorologists. Very learned coves indeed and thus always ready and available for an exhaustive explanation. But when the events prove them wrong - that happens not infrequently - , don't wait for an excuse, you are wasting your time.

Thus I wrote a letter to the editor of Newsweek but they did not publish it. So I thought nothing should be wasted in these hard times. My letter might be worthwhile reading inside this wonderful blog.

All this is about Robert J. Samuelson's article "It's really a global crisis".

So, if someone needs to smile a bit, here is Georgyporgy's idea of how to save the economy pronto.

Quote
It might be a great help if one of these economics pundits would admit the fact that they are clueless, more or less. This recession will subside until people finally operate a change of mind and start spending again. Not before.

All those government induced spending programs won't change this situation. You could built new roads, you could even level the Mojave dcsert and cover it with a slab of concrete three feet thick: that would certainly boost the cement industry but not the manufacturer of toothpaste or the shipyards. Etc, etc, etc.

However, let yourself be inspired by Roosevelt's inauguration speech, back in 1933. He asked for special powers to tackle the problem at hand. "I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe".

Having achieved this, the incumbent president could vote to have the National Guard be equipped with axes or heavy clubs. Nationwide. Then these so armed recession fighters would enter every home and start destroying the following items in each household: 1 TV set - 1 car - 1 washing machine - 1 cell phone plus about 100 items of more or less value laying around.

Before leaving they should paste a written recommendation saying those goods have to be replaced by items manufactured inside the country. No need to boost those Asiatic economies, right?

These harsh measures would get the country humming in no time and once again the rest of the world would rush to imitate.

Here in France, however, we would start by going on strike, sure.

Unquote

Your comments, please. As to me, I am busy these days with the chain saw and the log splitting machine. Hard work.

End of youth - adulthood

During my apprenticeship in Aachen with at an import-export company I became friend with Bernie. We met at school and decided to go to India, after certification. Our choice fell on India because you can go there by road and thus we had long meetings to work out the details of our trip.

Then came my military service at the Air Force (18 months) and after discharge and back in Aachen, first thing I did was to call on Bernie. His mother answered the phone: "Well, yes, I remember, this trip to India", she told me. "One has to grow up, hasn't one." What could I replay to that? "Give my greetings to Bernie" I said and hung up.

So I was once more on my own. This time to hitchhike to India. And in Istanbul I met an Englishman, Oxford-Johnny, and we decided to go east together.

Somewhere in Western Iran, a truck driver dropped us in a little town or village. So we squatted by the roadside, waiting for the next transport. The dirt road passed through a valley, its right side scattered with little houses, made of mud and stones. Behind many of these houses lay huge boulders that must have come tumbling down from the mountain. Simply by looking at those houses I smelled the danger. The rocks could move again, others might come down and they would not give any warning.


Photo of an Iranian village. But beware, it is NOT the place I a am talking of though this is the landscape I came through. I pasted it here only for its beauty.


Why did these people live there? They could not go elsewhere, I suppose. On the left side of the road, the ground was flat and there was a very long wall, about 1 1/2 meter (5 feet) high. Behind the wall I saw a big stately house.

Suddenly, a door in the wall opened and out came a guy carrying two platters with food and drink. "My master gives you his best wishes. Eat and be restored", he said, put the platters before us on the ground and left.

Wow! We did as he asked and left the cleaned platters at the door. Should we have gone in to say thank you? I don't know. That was neither the first nor the last time people - complete strangers - were friendly to me. But never like that.

About two months later I finally arrived in India. Oxford-Johnny had left me in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. "I think from here on, we better carry on separately", he told me. I liked his company and don't know why he said that. Years later it occurred to me that he might have realized I knew where he was hiding his travel money. But that's just a guess.

One day I came to Amritsar, the Golden City, in Northern India. Looking around there I made the acquaintance of a Sikh who invited me into his house to stay with his people, for some time. This I did, ate their food, slept with them on the roof of their house with the other members of the family.


Photo of people in Amritsar. Found it on the Internet. Nothing to do with the people I met there.

When I left, ready to say good bye to those I have met in the house, the Sikh, the old Gentleman, said to me: "you never asked our name, never". I just don't remember what I answered to this. But it still rankles. I was tried and found wanting. Was I a self-centered young brat or was it only my timidity? I don't know.

Words of our last Emperor

In 1898, William II (Wilhelm II) visited officially the Holy Land. At that time the area was called Palestine and it was under Turkish rule. Have a look at him.





On his way he came to Damascus where he delivered a speech and said something that went far beyond the usual politeness of a visitor from a foreign land. "If I were not born as a Christian, I would have been a Muslim"

That is more than a hundred years ago and I am wondering what made him say that. Were those Muslims he saw and talked to the same kind of people we hear of these days? I just can't imagine that. They must have been very different.

Time has changed. Now, a hundred years later, who would like to repeat those words?


This video about the stoning of a girl of 17 has been sent to me by a French blogger-friend.



There are people who hurt her and there are others who are busy making a movie with their cellphones. Until someone "finalizes" with a block of concrete, similar to those I am using when building a wall (about 20 kg each).

No need to imagine how is hell in the afterlife. It's nearby, just a few airplane hours from here, equipped with battery powered cell phones.

The murdered girl's name was Doa Khalil Aswad, 17 ans. She was subject to to public murder because she fell in love with a young man of another religion. One more life wasted by or for Sharia.




During the murder procedure, her thighs become visible and you see her slip. Then someone covers that part of her body to protect her dignity. Can you imagine. That's what I call perverse.

There is a petition so as to stop this Sharia business in Kurdistan/Iraq.

Important statement received as comment by an Afghan blogger living in Pakistan:

Hi Georg, I'm with you against madness practiced in the name of any law, whenever, wherever it is practiced. But facts should remain facts. Du'a Khalil Aswad was not stoned under Sharia Law. She wasn't even a Muslim. She was a Yazidi, and she was stoned by the people of her own religion for having a Muslim boyfriend. It was a case of honor killing.

Islam, that like any other religion preaches of love and peace , its image has been enough tarnished by a bunch of savages who think they are being Muslims.

I request you, to kindly set the facts straight about the video in your blog.

I had a look at Wikipedia under Yazidi and they even mentioned this stoning. So I made a mistake. The poor girl was not Muslim and Sharia - this time - is not to be incriminated.