Religious Violence

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"Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul."
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I doubt that the Dali Lama would argue against that. The Pope is right. And he is brave to bring up the subject for discussions. Unfortunately many Muslims are closed minded and refuse to rationally discuss anyting having to do with their religion, their prophet or their holy book. And certainly they refuse to discuss anyting about equality for women. Or religious tolerance. Or open mindedness. My Goodness, Heaven forbid.
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Violence in the name of God(s) is no longer appropriate. It may have been 2,000 years ago, but it certainly is not in the 21st century.
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Ben & Blanche Savage

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These are two really fine people.

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They have had good lives and they deserve it!

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Click on the picture and it will enlarge enough to be readable.
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ASARCO Really Might Re-Open

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In 1999 after many years of contaminating the El Paso-Juarez community with toxic heavy metals this smelter was finally closed.
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Kids were poisoned with lead for many years just to make this massive corporation more profits. Check out the Sierra Club study on lead in the soil: http://tinyurl.com/lclzv
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It was closed not because environmentalists got their acts together, or the democratic process worked, but in reality it was closed due to market forces, economics and the price of copper.
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Now it might re-open. Honest. It is a very real possibility.

This would be a real disaster for the people of El Paso and Juarez. Lets hope that enough people who have some stroke do what is necessary to stop this.
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In 1970 I did a paper on ASARCO for an engineering class I was taking at UTEP. Back then it was clear what the lead put out by them was doing. That was 35 years ago. There is no question that getting it shut back down if it does re-open will be almost impossible. The only hope is to keep it from re-opening now.
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Local issues are the ones that us normal people can actually have some impact on. I hope that the students at UTEP briefly put aside their hate for President W and the war in Iraq, and focus their attention on something genuienly worthwhile that they can do for humanity. They could have a true impact.


LINK: http://newspapertree.com/view_article.sstg?c=e21a462467284e3b
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The Sum of All Human Knowledge Only a Mouse Click Away

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Stephen Fry recently was discussing this. It really is amazing what one can find on the internet.

I am not a Catholic, but I find the current pope to be a very interesting man. You could say that I respect him. I respect him for what he has been through, his education, and most of all for his humility. He has the balls to bring up for discussion the subject of religious sanctioned violence. Without any doubt this is one of the most important issues of the day.

Today I spent some time browsing through the web site operated by the Vatican. It is really amazing. http://www.vatican.va/phome_en.htm

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Here is a link to my blog entry when I visited the Vatican: http://paulgarland.blogspot.com/2006/03/vatican.html

And this takes you to the Appian Way in Rome: http://paulgarland.blogspot.com/2006/03/appian-way.html
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CLL - Article by Dr. Terry Hamblin

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Dr. Hamblin is one of the world's top experts on this type of leukemia. He is also my British doctor.
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This link will take you to a really good article in his blog: http://mutated-unmuated.blogspot.com/2006/09/chlorambucil-plus-rituximab.html
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Antiques Market Tongeren, Belgium

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I went over to Tongeren this morning.

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A fellow sold me this late 1800's - early 1900's carbide bicycle lamp for EUR 40-. It is beautiful and in great shape.

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I also found a vaseline glass one half liter leaded crystal flask which I bought for EUR 15-. It glows real bright green under long wave UV, and under short wave UV the blue from the lead shows up clearly.
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Link to my collection of vaseline glass: http://tinyurl.com/oseb9


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Roman Roof Tiles

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I rode the Vespa over to the airshow in Aachen.
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After staying there are few hours I left. I decided to see if I could find a farm road a few miles from the airport to get a different view.
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The Vespa for sure is not a dirt bike.
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It behaves badly even on dirt roads, you sure wouldn't want to take it off road. So you have to drive carefully.
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Maybe a mile of two from the Aachen airport I was really very pleasantly surprised to find a patch of Roman roof tiles in the road and in the adjacent farm fields.
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Once you are familiar with these tiles and have seen them in many different locations, you can pick them out almost immediately by their color.
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I walked this area extensively for probably an hour or two. The Roman Villa must have been pretty large.
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Other than lots of roof tile spread over a fairly large area, all I found were a couple of small pottery shards.

Roman Roof Tiles: http://tinyurl.com/fa8nf
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/101/2016/1600/mortar.0.jpg
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Airshow

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I had a really nice time at the Aachen airshow.

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It is a small airport which has a lot of gliders, a couple of flight schools, and the medivac helicopter for the German Auto Club.

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In the hangers there were the usual Cessna 152s and 172s, lots of Pipers, a Beachcraft Bonanza and a small C-90 King Air, plus a few Mooneys.
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On display there were lots of neat aircraft (including three T6’s) and a great display of American WWII jeeps and trucks.
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I got to ride in a helicopter.

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It was not my first or even my second time riding in a helicopter, but helicopters are always a lot of fun!
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And there were some excellent aerobatic displays, mostly in Russian Tupelov aircraft.

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Link to more pictures: http://tinyurl.com/ehke6

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Carbon Footprint

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With what mankind has done to the earth, and the continued rapid rise in levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we all should be doing what we can. I don't think there is much doubt any more about it; global warming is real.
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The house that I have owned here in Holland for the last 14 years has good insulation, double pane windows and shutters, and a digital clock controlled thermostat. I've changed out 99% of the light bulbs in the house to the energy efficient mini fluorescent type. And more and more I'm using the Vespa moped to go places. Even grocery shopping. When I do need a car I use the Fiat which gets 40 mpg.
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The first time I checked the fuel economy on my Vespa I got 90 mpg. This tank I drove it really carefully and slowly to maximize fuel economy. And it got 98.8 mpg on this tank.
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Well, that is a little better but frankly I was hoping for somewhat over 100 miles per gallon.
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Any way you look at it this is sure a different story than my carbon footprint when I had the Corvette, or the G500 Mercedes SUV, or the Ford with the 429 cu in V8 and the big 4 barrel.
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If things go according to plan, soon I will be moving back to the Southwest of the USA. I hope that I will be able to find a small place there to buy which has double pane windows, good insulation, etc.
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For transportation the plan is to buy a small Toyota, maybe a one or two year old used one. And a 125cc motor scooter most likely a Yamaha Vino 125.

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Pope Benedict

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I think Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is doing fine in his new job. The fact that he has the eyes of a serial killer is really irrelevant.

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He is humble. And intelligent, and very well educated.
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The Muslim religion is opressive and is horribly discriminatory against women. In practice it is clearly opposed to education and any form of open mindedness. And it is extremely intolerant. Intolerant of other religions and just generally arrogant and intolerant.

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Papa, part of your job is to be honest and say it like it is. And to fight evil.

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Keep up the good work Dude!

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In his speech at the University of Regensburg on Tuesday, Benedict quoted criticism of Islam and the Prophet Mohammad by 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who wrote that everything Mohammad brought was evil and inhuman, "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".

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Benedict repeatedly quoted Manuel's argument that spreading the faith through violence is unreasonable, adding: "Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul."
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http://www.kvia.com/Global/story.asp?s=5410717
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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6084194

Imagine

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Several times a week I go over to the center of Aachen. To the Old Town. Charlemagne’s cathedral from 800 A.D. is there, so is Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Starbucks, and the little Turkish hole in the wall that I eat at often. I almost always sit at the same table. I’m sure I have eaten there 20 or probably many more times.
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This afternoon I looked up at a picture on the wall and I realized, “Hey that is the Imagine memorial to John Lennon at Strawberry Fields in Central Park, N.Y.” So I got up to look at it closer, and the young Turkish guy who runs the place smiled and pointed around. All of the pictures on all the walls were different ones he had taken in the Big Apple.
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I frequently tell visitors the following story. Charlemagne was the most powerful man in the world in 800 A.D. The Pope in Rome asked him for favors. Really. He was later canonized.
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If you look at the map of the territory Karl the Great controlled it is very similar indeed to the modern day European Union. This extremely wealthy, powerful man could have lived anywhere he wanted. In the South of France, or Rome, or Paris. And he chose as his most favourite palace and the place to build his cathedral what we know of today as Aachen.
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Same with the first man to ever build an all metal airplane, Hugo Junkers. He had factories all over Europe. And he chose to live in Aachen. Nowadays his house is a museum with his amazing collections from the Roman times to the middle ages. So honest, Aachen is really a pretty nice place.
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But here is this guy who knows Turkey (Asia Minor) quite well. And his restaurant is maybe 20 yards away from Charlemagne’s palace in Aachen. And all the pictures on the walls of his place are ones that he took in New York City in 2001. And his very most favourite picture is the one of the Imagine memorial to John Lennon.

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Right On Bro! You sure have got your priorities right.
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It just goes to show that The Grass is Always Greener on the other side of the fence.

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-http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6082349

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Otero Mesa

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The area that is commonly referred to as Otero Mesa can roughly be described as far Southern New Mexico and far Northern Hudspeth county Texas, East of the Hueco mountains, West of the Guadalupes, North of the Carlsbad highway 62, and south of the Lincoln National Forest.
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So it includes Cerro Alto, the Cornudas mountains with the ruins of the Butterfield Trail Station and all of the incredible rock art, Wind Mountain, Dell City, and Salt Flats.

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This is really a special area. Some of the very last remaining Chihuahuan desert grass land still exists here.
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There are a group of people who are trying to preserve this area as some form of government protected wilderness. This is a very worthwhile cause: http://www.oteromesa.org/

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Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry is a fascinating guy.

He was born five years after Mike Garland. He has his own TV show on the BBC which we get on cable here in Holland.

He has had laser eye surgery to correct his near sightedness which went badly wrong. He drives a London Taxi Cab (like the Queen’s husband does) to remain incognito.

He is overweight and still smokes cigarettes, both of which are problems that he is unable to solve. Both cause him great amounts personal criticism and self loathing. Honest. I’ve seen him discuss it.
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And he is brilliant, funny, and generally behaves as a gentleman.

He is gay and has come out of the closet. This is a neat quote by him from an interview in OutUK, "What you do with your penis or your bottom or anything else is so supremely irrelevant in a moral sense. It's what we do with our personalities and other people that matters."


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You can pre-order this book from Amazon. I just did.


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If you click on this article it should enlarge enough to be readable.


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Point of interest: Henry VIII's favorite ship was named the Mary Rose. It was built in 1510 and later sank during a battle with the French on July 19, 1545 just off the Southern coast of England at Portsmouth. She was found a few years ago and was recovered by a team of underwater archaeologists. She is now the only 16th century ship on display in the entire world.
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What makes her especially famous to me, and the reason I went to see her, is that the Barber-Surgeon's chest contained a number of medicines which were stored in stoneware containers made in Raeren (which is now in Belgium, but at that time in Germany). The fact that the date of her sinking is so well documented is great proof of the age of this famous type of stoneware.
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Clik on this picture and it will enlarge. The quality is not all that good, but considering that it was pretty dark in here and they didn't allow me to use a flash, they are respectable.


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This is a link to Stephen Fry's official website: http://www.stephenfry.com/

LINK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Fry
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Death and Rebirth

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Last spring in a wave of exuberant flowering and pollination the sex act was consummated. Now months later the days are getting shorter and here in the Northern Hemisphere plants are perpetuating the species by making their seeds.
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Constantine the Great was head of the Roman Empire around 312 AD. It was during his reign that Christianity was recognized and approved. Prior to this it was heavily discriminated against if not outright banned.
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Yet in the Roman temples, burials, and villas I have been to all over Britain and from Northern Europe down to Southern Italy one sees the image of the pinecone. Many are from well before the time of Constantine and when Christianity was approved as a religion.
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The pinecone symbolized death and rebirth, eternal life to our ancestors, the ancients.
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I photographed the pinecone at the bottom right today in the wilderness forest just across the street from my house. The two pictures at the top and middle are of roughly 2,000 year old Roman stone pinecones.
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The single stone pinecone at the top right is in the amazing archaeology museum in Trier, Germany which at one time was the headquarters of the entire Roman Empire.

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The picture in the middle below it with three stone pinecones is from the large Roman settlement along the banks of the Rhine River at what is now called Cologne.

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(If you click on any of these photographs they will enlarge)
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Not Broken Yet

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Sitting in Starbucks in Aachen, Germany this afternoon drinking a frapuccino I finished Voyager by Diana Gabaldon. At the end of this the third book in the series their small ship has been blown for days by a hurricane. They finally hit land and are amazed to find that they have been blown 600 miles to the North and have landed in the New World, America, in the state of Georgia.
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I was so happy for them that my eyes teared up a little. One good thing about being old and fat and having a full grey beard; young ladies just don’t take much notice of you. You can belch and fart and sob silently, using the Starbucks napkins to wipe off the tears that are streaming down your face, but to them you are invisible. It is like having Harry Potter’s cloak on.
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One might describe Claire and Jamie’s life so far in a little different words: After a series of unbelievably amazing and neat experiences, and after being buffeted and bent, but not broken by some pretty strong winds, they are ready to start their new life in America.
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And as the summer comes to an end I'm ready to begin the 4th book, "The Drums of Autumn."

Picture I took at Stirling Castle in Scotland: http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/101/2016/1600/Stirling%20Castle%200018.jpg
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Aachen Air Show

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There is going to be an airshow in Aachen this weekend. Should be fun.



I have more than 1,000 hours logged as pilot in command of various aircraft, so I am very interested in airplanes. My mother was a pilot, so was my uncle. And most of my bosses over my career.


Most of my flying time has been in Cessna and Piper single engine airplanes under VFR conditions, but I've done some genuine IFR flying coast to coast that I won't forget. Night flying in El Paso and Southern New Mexico sure is a beautiful experience.
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And of course there was the time that the generator failed over Arizona and I had to land IFR no-radio in San Diego. Flying back to El Paso I had a big car battery in the back (fully charged up off a friend's Volvo) and flew most of the way from California to West Texas with no lights, radios, transponder, or instruments. Just keeping the North Star off the left wing. Really.
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In college my lab science was astronomy, so why not fly over the wide open desert using celestial navigation if you have the skill and if in fact it is perfectly legal and within all FAA rules? A little frightening for the passengers I'll admit, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do. Ben remembers that trip for sure. Scuba diving in the Pacific, watching the whales...

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From the following link I see that they are going to have a T6 WWII airplane there. I flew one learning aerobatics one time. Loops, rolls, etc. Thanks to Fred Saunders


Aviation Weather: http://weather.noaa.gov/weather/current/EHBK.html


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Link: http://www.flugtage.de/flugtage/aachen.html
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http://www.flugplatz-aachen.de/
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Resignation from Adulthood

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A lady in my leukemia support group posted this. I think its really neat.
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RESIGNATION

I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult.
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I have decided I would like to accept the responsibilities of an 8 year-old again.
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I want to go to McDonald's and think that it's a four star restaurant.
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I want to sail sticks across a fresh mud puddle and make a sidewalk with rocks.
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I want to think M&M’s are better than money because you can eat them.
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I want to lie under a big oak tree and run a lemonade stand with my friends on a hot summer's day.
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I want to return to a time when life was simple, when all you knew were colors, multiplication tables, and nursery rhymes, but that didn't bother you, because you didn't know what you didn't know and you didn't care. All you knew was to be happy because you were blissfully unaware of all the things that should make you worried or upset.
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I want to think the world is fair. That everyone is honest and good.
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I want to believe that anything is possible.
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I want to be oblivious to the complexities of life and be overly excited by the little things again.
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I want to live simple again.
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I don't want my day to consist of computer crashes, mountains of paperwork, depressing news, how to survive more days in the month than there is money in the bank, doctor bills, gossip, illness, and loss of loved ones.
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I want to believe in the power of smiles, hugs, a kind word, truth, justice, peace, dreams, the imagination, mankind, and making angels in the snow.
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So . . . here's my checkbook and my car keys, my credit card bills and my 401K statements.
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I am officially resigning from adulthood. And if you want to discuss this further, you'll have to catch me first, cause.............
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"Tag! You're it."
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Holandés Pinchi Migra

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For the last 6 weeks or so I've been involved in what has felt like an endless loop of the Dutch wooden shoe dance called the Bureaucratic Shuffle.
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Today it was fully resolved.
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The Dutch government has decided that it will be OK for me to remain here two more years. If I want to stay longer than that, then I just need to call them at that time.
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I only intend to stay as long as it takes to sell my house but, What A Relief!
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Montmartre Rue Foyatier Paris

This morning I couldn't remember Brassai's name.

Hunting around on the internet I came across lots of things about Ansel Adams and John Muir.

Then I found some references to Brassai. He was not a French photographer, he was a Hungarian photographer living in Paris. Duh. Uh, I knew that.

On several different trips to Paris I tried to re-create Brassai's famous black and white picture looking down the long steps on Rue Foyatier, which is called "The Stairs."

These stairs are right next to the funicular.

On the Butte, just below the sacred heart church. -

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(Clik on the picture and it will enlarge)

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brassai

9-11

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This is a link to some of my New York City pictures, including some of Ground Zero.

Link: http://tinyurl.com/hb8le

The Berlin wall fell on 11-9
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http://paulgarland.blogspot.com/2006/01/berlin-wall.html
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http://paulgarland.blogspot.com/2006/07/quantity-of-life-vs-quality-of-life.html


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