Kinda Like Swords Into Plowshares...and Ultrarunning

More of this, please: taking some 62 chunks of unused military real estate and making nature preserves out of them.  

From Germany (you should go read the whole article):

BERLIN (AFP) - Germany agreed Thursday to turn more than 60 former military bases into nature preserves, with the aim of creating vast new green oases and sanctuaries for rare species of birds.

Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks said an ongoing overhaul of the German armed forces had made it possible to set aside more than 31,000 hectares (76,600 acres) of forests, marshes, meadows and moors.

She said the government had opted against selling the land, in some cases, prime pieces of real estate, to investors in favour of creating natural refuges.

What strikes me most is that the authorities stood up to development and investment pressures to do the right thing.  

I posted about this type of activity some 5 years ago, here.  

The link to Ultrarunning, of course, is the availability of backcountry places in which to go running.  As population pressures grow, exacerbated by climate change and wealth inequality, the "need" to tap wilderness and formerly set-aside land will grow and must be resisted.  Wild areas are necessary for the proper functioning of the human psyche.

The Rude Pundit, the Debt Deal, and Ultrarunning

I've previously posted (here and here) about my love affair with The Rude Pundit, a secret vice, actually, where via using profanity and vulgarity and crude sexual imagery he makes political points that are right on the money.

His post for Monday about the debt limit deal was another great example.  At the bottom he gets more serious and asks the question about the linkage--or lack thereof--between the debt deal and the fact that our two three wars are kinda accepted as a budgetary given, some sacred off-limits nondiscretionary spending:

One thing the Rude Pundit can't get his mind around is that the wars continue. Aren't they the vestiges of a fallen empire, attempting to remain relevant in a world that wants to move on? That we prefer war to roads and health care and education here is unfathomably depressing.

Oh, and the connection to Ultrarunning?  Just this: even though I rail about how the U.S. is coming off the rails, we still have it good (at least if you are safely employed).  By that I mean that if I want to go trail running, I go.  It's safe, and there are no bands of armed partisans or rebels waiting to butcher me for trespassing on their turf.   That's not true everywhere on the planet.  for example, ultrarunning is a pure luxury in the Sudan or Somalia.

 

Swords Into Plowshares

IF this really happened--the beating of swords into plowshares--we'd be leaving a better world for our children.

(Photo credit and narrative here)

The United Nations garden contains several sculptures and statues that have been donated by different countries. This one is called "Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares" and was a gift from the then Soviet Union presented in 1959. Made by Evgeniy Vuchetich, the bronze statue represents the figure of a man holding a hammer in one hand and, in the other, a sword which he is making into a plowshare, symbolizing man's desire to put an end to war and convert the means of destruction into creative tools for the benefit of all mankind.

The original concept comes from the Christian Bible Old Testament, King James translation, Isaiah 2:4:

And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.