Oh the pain…

The pain helps me remember that I’m alive! My legs hurt quite a lot when I walk around. Not so much when I sit or if I stand still.
I went running yesterday evening by myself. I got all the way around all the lakes – twice. And all in about 1 hour and 5-10 minutes. It’s the first time that I have run so long a distance (it’s roughly 12.5 km, give or take), but with Eremitage løbet coming up this Sunday, not one moment to soon.

Monday I went with Esben to see All Gore‘s An Inconvenient Truth in Dagmar. I didn’t expect much but was to some extend pleasantly surprised. It’s basically one long presentation of his ‘slide show’ that he has given several times, spiced up with a few anecdotes, fancy graphics and similar.
Living in Europe and living (for better and for worse) the life that I do, of course the movie also had a message to me, but I felt a lot of it was very much for the American audience. Also, a lot of the information was in no way new to me, although some things were put into quite other perspectives.

While walking home from the cinema Esben and I talked about what to do about the situation/problems that the movie brought up. Our conversation covered a lot of ground, and our ideas spread from on the one hand start really using less energy, and use environmentally friendly energy, to on the other hand getting ready to live in a Water World like world, and starting already now looking into growing gills.

No particular place to go…

This weekend was an event full one here in Copenhagen. Sunday afternoon a “reclaim the streets” party/demonstration in support of Ungdomshuset (Wikipedia link) ended in 263 arrests, and the media has been full of pictures of flying paving stones and dumpsters set on fire in the streets of Nørrebro.
The police of course claims that the demonstraters could have continued if they had played by the rules. The demonstraters on the other hand claim that the confrontation started by the police driving(!) their vans into the crowd.
At the end of the day, out of the 263 arrests only five people remained in custody.
My guess is that the police was just looking to pick a fight… The day before, Saturday, there was another big peace full demonstration, which I took part in, for Ungdomshuset with about 3,000 demonstrators and it was made clear again and again that all the happenings for Ungdomshuset this weekend (there was also a concert with some rather big names Friday) were to be peace full. The phrase “we choose when and where to fight” came up a couple of times and it was made clear that no one were looking for trouble this weekend…
Besides that, I personally had a great weekend, with some partying and moderate drinking Friday and Saturday night, and a relaxed bike ride with David Sunday afternoon out to Langelinie and up the coast with no particular place to go. We actually just managed to see the big police lineup at Droning Louises Bro before we left the city center.

I know it’s kind of cheap just making a blog entry made up of a few links, but I kind of like this story.

It would seem that some British fellow calling him self Banksy has managed to place a doll dressed as a Guantanamo Bay prisoner in Disneyland in Anaheim California.

Nice pictures over here:
http://www.woostercollective.com/2006/09/breaking_the_story_disneyland_doesnt_wan.html

I just got home from a demonstration for a cease-fire in Lebanon and an end to occupation. I would have brought a camera, but forgot, so for now, no pictures from the event.

There were a number of speakers from a broad spectrum of parties and organizations.

As a ‘surprise treat’ David Rovics did one and a half number, before one of his guitar strings broke. I have, to my regret, never seen him live before today, but wanted to go a few of the times he has been playing in Denmark / Copenhagen. So it was kind of cool seeing him, although just for a short time.

Amazing Grace

Yesterday was fourth of July, the American Independence Day. Not really a holiday I have ever celebrated in the past, but yesterday I attended two (different) celebrations of the day.

The first was a political manifestation. I joined over 300 others outside the Ministry of Defence, located at Holmens Kanal. There we put on orange jumpsuits, black hoods and chains around feet and hands. Then we went in one long line – three by three – to the American Embassy in complete silence (except for the rattling of the chains). Upon arrival we song the Amazing Grace, and then went our separate ways. Even though there were a whole bunch of reporters with cameras, I have only been able to find very shallow covering of the event – if I do manage to find more pictures or general news items about it, I will link it here later. For now, take a quick look here for a single picture.

http://www.localeyes.dk/article3262.html

So, with the political manifestation of the day taken care of I moved on to Amager for a more traditional celebration. We were just about 14 people, grilling (or do you call it barbecuing in the states?), drinking beer and having a good time.

I got home late’ish, slept until noon and now I should be just about ready to start my day… (being on holidays sure is sweet!)