More evictions of Palestinian Families

... I was going to make a post about the Swiss Constitution Day, but instead, I'll focus on a more severe matter: Palestinians being evicted from their homes today, to make way for Jewish settlers.

There are several wars around the world. But there is one single one, that not only feels bad, it really makes me sick thinking about it. The Israeli - Palestinian conflict. Two sides where both seems to be ruled by a part which really don't want peace, but really really wants more conflict.

Today two large Palestinian families where evicted from their home in Eastern Jerusalem. By international consensus a Palestinian territory, but occupied by Israel. The case had even gone all the way up to supreme court in Israel, which ruled that the Palestinians where living in those houses illegally! And why? Because the settlers had a paper claiming the property was bought by the settlers... Well, this is not the first time I have seen this in the news. And I can guess there is a LOT of hidden cases, which we never hear of. So what the hell is happening?

This smells long way of forgery or corruption for me. It's hart to explain how that kind of eviction can be justified EVEN if they had actually sold their property. And who would buy a property, and not making sure it was a legal buy? If you didn't care for the previous owner of the house.

So how can that happen in the first place... Given that the Palestinians never had signed a paper selling their own house, how can the Israeli High Court judge their living there illegal? And if the Palestinians HAD signed a paper which sold the house. How could it even get so far up as the High Court? And as it's about a matter of property in Palestinian Legal territory, how could an Israeli Court judge in the case at all? Sadly I can only find one single possible answer, which makes me feel even more sick about that conflict:

Racism.

I know there is much more nuances in there, and that many many Israelis don't support the evictions or even the West Bank settlements. I cheer for those who dare to speak up against these kinds of atrocities. Israel, and especially more Americans need to see what is happening in Palestine, done by Israeli settlers, and supported or ignored by too many leaders in USA: It must be possible to say more that "it's not productive", as a comment to those actions (Even though I know "not productive" is a diplomatic term for "really damaging").

And then: How come not more Americans are not seeing a link between the actions of Israel in the West Bank combined with the United States' silent approval of it, to what is does: Brew more hate and terrorism not only against Israel, but toward the United States, and even Europe too! And how come then that it is not a part of America's "War on Terror"! If the USA want to get rid of terrorism, it HAS to solve one conflict, which would stop a lot of the problems: The Israel-Palestine conflict.

... I could continue to rant even more bullshit about the conflict, but I realize I have no way the writing skills to do any difference, nor the capacity to go on much more. So I'll rather go to bed, and hope at least some few people have read this post, coming to the conclusion that something has to be done.

And just to clarify: I have nothing against Americans or Jews in general. I have several friends and colleagues of either kind, and all of them are great people.

Second Impression

Is there something as a "Second Impression"? Well, at least, now I have been here in Zürich in 9 days, and just doing my second weekend. I guess soon, I will no longer count the days here, but just try to enjoy it as much as possible. So far I have had a few experiences:

Swiss German is terribly hard to understand. Even if it has a lot of commons with German, Dutch, French and even some Norwegian... For a first timer, it may sound like a Norwegian-French accent of German, when it's "just" a well preserved dialect of German, with influence from French and some Italian. But to help me to cope with this new language, I watch the local "Zuri Tele" TV channel, even if some days programs are way too boring to watch in the first place. I don't really notice, because I still struggle to get out complete sentences, if not just to recognize at least some words in each sentence. It helps with my previous German knowledge, altough not much.

And living in a mini-apartment like I do now is WAY too boring for me. I don't have my music. I don't have my piano, and I don't have my swords... At least I brought my camera with me, but it's limits to how much I can pretend to be a tourist... But I really do look like one. On the other hand, I have been able to take a few shots of the surrounding area... Bear with me, as it's mostly "art photos", which I'll post on DeviantArt.

Here's some "look around" photos:
My temporary home: Dubsstrasse 30. My room is behind the tree on the left. The tree more or less covers the window, so no view. But Privacy is great too.

The neighboring street. I don't remember it's name right now, but the whole area (between Schmede Wiedikon and Weld) is full of these cozy streets with buildings from 1880 to 1920, the first real heydays of Zürich.

The Sihl river, flowing more or less between my apartment and the office.

The office building, and the railroad crossing. The "gardened" backyard seen between the office building and the railroad is our outdoor lunch area. The Sihl flows just on the other side of the trees to the right, and just here is the walking bridge too. Practical I must say.

And from sigh-seeing around the town.



An Unlucky bike...

Sihl City, the local super market.

The fountain seen from the botanical gardens.

Another bike, but a little more lucky. And smart.

Home, for a while

Finally I'm in Switzerland. Not yet in my own apartment, but at least settled. Not so much to report so far, as I arrived two days ago. But so far have been a good experience. Things just seem to work around here. There goes trams around the city all the time, so there is no point in planning a trip to the bus schedule. And I have gotten myself the most important stuff: The Ausländerausweis (Foreinger's registration of residence), and the monthly pass on the trams in the city. I've said hi to my colleagues here, and started the internal registration here...

But one thing have failed (so far): On my mailbox it says: "E. J. Stein"... Oh bugger. And I forgot to buy salt and pepper to my dinner today.

And tomorrow I will take on my first "look around" to know my current neighborhood. I promise pictures.

I don't believe...

I don't believe in God. I have no theory how he came to be, how he could continue to exists, and how he could have done all that is described in the Bible.

Having just stumbled upon an Atheist site, and read their forum, I start to wonder about my own beliefs. And frankly I come more or less up with the same answer as "last time": I don't believe. It's not merely a "I don't believe in God". It's more substantial... "I don't believe". But "God" knows, I love to joke about it.

Then when I was in Brazil I was asked the question: "Do you believe in Evolution?" A question that set me a little back, because I hadn't really thought about the Theory of Evolution to something I could either believe in, or not. This had to be taken to a considerable thought. (No discussion sorry, I don't think I have time for that.)

This year Darwin would have celebrated his 200th birthday had he still lived. And there have been celebrations all around the world. Surely enough, not everybody celebrated, but I'm time and again surprised about how many people around the world feel "offended" by the theory. In USA, some quite extreme non-Evolutionists have opened a "Creationists Museum", which show the various species around, and the wonders of the natural world with references to the Bible. Surely that has to be evidence enough that the Bible is correct? Literally? Wow...

Then you'd be amazed when I state that "I don't believe in the Theory of Evolution"... No seriously. I don't believe. I trust it. The resulting difference is diminutive, but quite essential. Remember, I'm a scientist.

The whole episode started with me seeing a link for a "funny comic" on another forum. Not so much because of it's "Atheist" view's but more of a rather funny side reference. Read the comic yourselves, but if you're not a local you might not get why it was so funny. Obviously my response to the last remark would be: Oh yeah, so do I. Otherwise, what language would they speak at the "HELL GODS EXPEDITION" instead? Swedish?

In my bewilderedness in Brazil I happen to answer "Yes". Even if it would be slightly wrong. And the difference? I don't feel offended by people debunking the theory of evolution. I would most likely just feel slightly annoyed for them to waste my time like that (unless they have some new arguments to the discussion, or know how to make a good discussion), and then it gets more or less impossible for me to take those persons serious.

Brazil - Minas Gerais

OK, day to day blogging died when I got here. And it's also very difficult to blog when traveling around without connection to the Internet, or just running from one to other stuff while in constant heat shock... But, just day to day life in Guarapari might not be that interesting, so we took ourselves a trip. And this time we went over to Minas Gerais. Minas Gerais lies just inland from Espirito Santo, and is one of the old colonial states in Brazil. We visited two of the old colonial towns, Ouro Preto, and Diamantina. Ouro Preto means "Black Gold", so you can guess what they mined there. Five of us went on the trip. Lis, Aun, Glaucia, Johan and me.

Gold from black stones...

Ouro Preto

Ouro preto was an old town, founded in the late 17th century after the Portuguese had found gold there. And quickly the town grew quite large, and in 1822 the capital of Minas Gerais moved from Mariana, a small town just east of it, to Ouro Preto. But was lost again in 1897 to a new planned capital they had called Belo Horizonte.

Ouro preto is full of old colonial style buildings, and at the same time it camps it self to the sides of the quite steep valley it's located in. The base height of the city is 1100 meters, and the climatic difference from the lowland by the coast is imminent. Cooler nights, more stable weather, and dryer air. I really liked that part. And with lots of historical museums, sightseeings, churches and colonial style streets, a really lovely town.As Ouro Preto was built on mining for gold, it was natural that when that industry started to fade it turned itself on other precious or just lovely stones, masonry and stone crafting. This image was from a jewelery store that had specialized on local mined stones, including giant quartz crystals, aquamarine, and a special local form of topaz called "Imperial Topaz". So far only found in Ouro Preto.

By the way, when we got up to this height, Johan started to get quite bad with his asthma. And at this point, about 7 hours drive from home, where the inhaler was forgotten... So the lesson was learned for now. At least we found a nice town, which suited some of the accompanied tourists. Other attractions was a historical photography place. We were dressed up in suit and 19th century dresses, and should have been taken photograph by an old camera, but hey, modern technology makes it a little easier...
And the city was full of holes like this. Old mines no longer in use. This particular mine was located in the middle of the city and dug itself straight into the mountain under "downtown" Ouro Preto. Loads of ther holes were seen, and from the guide we were told some of the numbers from the mines. Each mine could employ up to 1000 people, most of them slaves. And working there constantly for a few years, they would mine out and extract about 6-800 kg of pure gold. And at the same time bore out several kilometres of tunnels.
The old centre of Ouro Preto, with the gubernatorial palace (the tower to the left), the old Church to the right of it, and the large building in the foreground to the left is the back side of of of the building of the University of Mining in Ouro Preto. One of the larger universities in Brazil with over 8000 students. Which is quite large for a city of 56,000 inhabitants.

One of the night there the girls (Lis and Glaucia) insisted that I'd try a Caipirinha, which was full of lime (note on ). No way I said, but then it was swapped with a quite large shot of Cachasa, so well, then I didn't have much choice. Cachasa is a liqour of burned sugarcane, and tastes like s**t! Well, not much worse than ordinary Tequila, but I don't like that either...

Gruto do Maquiné

From Ouro Preto we drove north to a tiny town called Cordisburgo, simply because of a grotto. Gruto do Maquiné is a limestone cavern just a few minutes drive outside of Cordisburgo. But beware, cause the signs can be "missing" once in a while. And bring a map along. We drove at least 20 minutes in the wrong direction before the warning lamps were blinking red... This must be the wrong way. We should have passed the cavern more than 5 minutes ago!

At least someone we met on the way know where to drive, so we got there in time. Although about an hour later than planned. Well, it was worth it.

It's not much more to say about the cavern. So I'll just show a few more pictures...

Johan in the cave.

Me, Aun and Johan has just gotten out of the dungeon.

Glaucia and Lis back out.

Diamantina

After the Grotto we head north (not along the "wrong way to the Gruto" road, but following the main roads), toward one of the richest colonial towns in Minas Gerais, Diamantina. And now we head even higher up. Into cooler and drier climate, and open mountain plains and valleys. Just the landscape up there was beautiful, no need for an old and now preserved colonial town to top it up...It took us only about four to five hours do drive from Cordisburgo to Diamantina (but Aun of cource discovered later we could have saved about half an hour by continuing on the "wrong way to the Grotto road", a fact which he could not redeem himself for). Sadly, the visit was cut short as now the asthma of Johan grew even worse, and he had really problems breathing, and could no longer take proper food. So we had to drive back south the next morning. We only got to take a short trip into the old city centre, and I got a few pictures.

The church on Praca Constelheiro da Mata.

The pousada we stayed on, just two minutes from the old town squares and churches. A really lovely place, and not that expensive either. Good rooms, good service, and nice people.A street close to Praca Constelheiro da Mata.

Belo Horizonte

We drove then south from Diamantina to Belo Horizonte where we spent the night with Glaucia's sister, financé and their daughter. But once again, we spent wery little time there, and the little sightseeing we could make was from a car and with sparingly lights. Shortly the next day we drove onward to get back home. In the end, the trip was cur short by illness, mainly Johan's. Next time he should be a little older, and all necessary medicines must be brought along.