flynn050

When the US President asked where the monument removal would end and if George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would be next, he certainly spoke for many Americans who ask the same question, possibly the majority of Americans. For them the Confederate monuments in many cities are just decoration which one passes daily like so many flowerpots. And the matter is by no means limited to southern states. There are over 700 Confederate monuments in the US with many placed in border states or states far removed from the Civil War. With the monuments so frequent, it is easy to get used to them. White Americans are still the majority in most States and they are quite comfortable without poking around in what seems a distant history. But this view lacks the deeper understanding of history needed to explain why so many of these statues are still around. More importantly, ignorance also lacks empathy, i.e. the ability to put oneself in somebody else shoes. It lacks the basic insight that for Afric...

First glimpses The morning after a late arrival in darkness and a fantastic thunderstorm presented a view that was astonishing for its blue sky. The morning sun bathed a dense pack of houses clustered on the mountainside like a flow of lava. Sunrise Petion Ville (all images Philipsen) The scale of the hillside or its homes is hard to comprehend at first. The hotel is the only structure with 9 floors, the mountainside is so densely packed and so steep that no streets seem to be possible there. Only commercial buildings in the foreground provide a sense that the hillside buildings a bit further back are not villas, but rather tiny boxes the size of a shipping container.  The giant billboard advertising an Audi Q5 in French for "seulement" $45,900 coming into view in the foreground seems quite incongruous, as does another in English showing a BMW and the words "taller, bigger, stronger". Are these advertisements for the hotel guests? But who comes here to sleep and the...

And on the third day He " took together in one place the waters that are under the sky and He named the dry land Earth and the waters Seas "  (Genesis as quoted by Pier Augusto Brecchio in Man and Water ) Frenando Saenz Pedrosa, painting  Easy access to the beaches was such a high priority for then Governor William Donald Schaefer of Maryland that he made "Reach the Beach" a signature piece of his transportation agenda changing the landscape of the Eastern Shore with freeway style divided highways and bypasses around the historic towns. Access road 158 to North Carolina's Outer Banks turns into a parking lot every Saturday when the beach rentals lining up on the shoreline turn. Finding parking near the beaches of Coronado Island or La Jolla in the San Diego area is as impossible as finding a seat in New York's subway during rush-hour. With the summer vacation season and the annual migration towards the ocean fronts in full swing the question arises: Why do p...