European Tribune - Community, Politics & Progress.

Remember Bob on Earth's Day (+Floods)

by DoDo
Sat Apr 22nd, 2006 at 03:56:17 PM EST

Today is Earth's day, and I was at a CriticalMass cyclist protest in my home Budapest. A video-counted 32,000 and police-counted 30,000 bikers angered drivers when going around in the inner city. At the end, we raised our bikes - yours truly is visible somewhere on the picture below:

An earlier photo of the crowd on the shores of the Danube:

Meanwhile, along Hungary's second largest river Tisza, an incredibly massive flood is rolling down (which is bound to make the already critical situation downriver on the Danube worse).

For comparison: in 1879, a flood-of-the-millenium levelled Southern Hungarian town Szeged - that one topped out at river height mark 806 cm. The city then got dams of pharaonic proportions, cresting at 1000 cm (with a masonry wall giving another 1 m). Due to river regulation upriver, records rose afterwards - climbing to 960 cm in 1970.

Today, the river topped out at 1009 cm. As the masonry wall is leaky, sandbags had to defend the city.

Below another Index photo looking down from a bridge...

...and for comparison, an older photo found on the web, looking in the opposite direction from atop the masonry wall, showing what's under water now.

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Remember Bob on Earth's Day (+Floods) | 22 comments (22 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Remember Bob on Earth's Day (+Floods) (none / 0)

Superbravo for the cyclist action, from a fellow cyclist! However the flood situation looks bad.

by Alex in Toulouse on Sat Apr 22nd, 2006 at 04:33:14 PM EST

Re: Remember Bob on Earth's Day (+Floods) (none / 0)

I think you must have spent a lot of time next to the red truck near the wall on the right, being drawn to its color.

by Alex in Toulouse on Sat Apr 22nd, 2006 at 04:39:46 PM EST

Re: Remember Bob on Earth's Day (+Floods) (none / 0)

Hehehe :-)

Actually, I wasn't down there. When we got to this point, we were overtaking the crowd on a side street - and getting to the bridge internet newspaper Origo's photographer stood on, we saw that the front of the protest (which crossed the next bridge downriver) just reached the other side of this bridge, so we took a shortcut...

BTW, no one is attempting to find Waldo... I mean me on the top photograph?

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Sun Apr 23rd, 2006 at 08:01:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Remember Bob on Earth's Day (+Floods) (none / 0)

Ahhh on the top photograph?? I thought you meant it as a joke in the crowd photograph.

Ok let me take a look at that top photograph for a second, uhuh ok, yep, aha, um um, ok ... gotcha:

you're the guy in the middle of the picture, wearing a greyish-brown shirt. he's the only one who can't lift his bike all the way up ;))

by Alex in Toulouse on Sun Apr 23rd, 2006 at 09:20:55 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Remember Bob on Earth's Day (+Floods) (none / 0)

Good logic, but wrong guess :-)

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Sun Apr 23rd, 2006 at 11:11:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Remember Bob on Earth's Day (+Floods) (none / 0)

Darn. Ok, second guess:

Supposing that you're more or less in the foreground, if this picture were taken by a friend for example, and knowing that you like to keep personal details about you on internet blogs to a minimum, then you have to be either the guy with the blue shirt and Mike Tyson arms, or the guy in white behind the head of the girl with a camera (on the right), or the guy with a black shirt next to the person I mentioned in my previous comment (the one struggling to lift the bike).

by Alex in Toulouse on Sun Apr 23rd, 2006 at 11:29:46 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Remember Bob on Earth's Day (+Floods) (none / 0)

While I'm at it, everyone seems to have really expensive and cool bikes. There doesn't seem to be anyone lifting a 30+ year old kind of bicycle like the one I use

by Alex in Toulouse on Sun Apr 23rd, 2006 at 11:33:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Remember Bob on Earth's Day (+Floods) (none / 0)

Evolving, evolving...

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Sun Apr 23rd, 2006 at 11:42:38 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Remember Bob on Earth's Day (+Floods) (none / 0)

Third guess, which should have been my first: you're the person taking the picture??

by Alex in Toulouse on Sun Apr 23rd, 2006 at 12:12:25 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Remember Bob on Earth's Day (+Floods) (none / 1)

In the bottom left-hand corner, there's a person in blue, facing the wrong direction. I choose that person, because there's got to be some kind of symbolism in that...

by the stormy present (stormypresent aaaaaaat gmail etc) on Sun Apr 23rd, 2006 at 12:17:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Remember Bob on Earth's Day (+Floods) (none / 0)

No, he's the woman taking the picture! We've all been fooled all this time... ;-)

by the stormy present (stormypresent aaaaaaat gmail etc) on Sun Apr 23rd, 2006 at 12:14:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Remember Bob on Earth's Day (+Floods) (none / 0)

I was keeping that guess for my last attempt, but now that it's out, let me add another one in case even that one fails:

DoDo is one of the bicycles.

by Alex in Toulouse on Sun Apr 23rd, 2006 at 12:19:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Remember Bob on Earth's Day (+Floods) (none / 0)

You got the gender of the photographer, I give you that :-)

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Sun Apr 23rd, 2006 at 12:42:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Some help (none / 0)

I scrolled across photo albums on the internet, and found myself on another picture. I can safely post it as it won't be much of a help :-)

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Sun Apr 23rd, 2006 at 02:35:27 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Some help (none / 0)

I give up, even comparing the two pictures did not really help. But all will be revealed in Paris, won;t it?

by PeWi on Sun Apr 23rd, 2006 at 04:41:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Some help (none / 0)

When we're looking for Waldo, we know what he's wearing...

by the stormy present (stormypresent aaaaaaat gmail etc) on Mon Apr 24th, 2006 at 03:32:34 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Some help (none / 0)

The man with the red short pants...

by Harlem on Mon Apr 24th, 2006 at 04:27:33 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Extra (4.00 / 2)

Two photos more for each event from Index - first the biker protest:

The President of the Republic, surrounded by five frightening yet laughable bodyguards in civilian clothes:

Another section of the crowds at another section of the shore of the Danube:

Regarding the floods, works at the most critical point, where the dam has started to move:

Due to a long history of catastrophic floods on the flat lands, and the propaganda value the former regime and all elected governments saw in a well organised flood defense. Everything is used - and this is the only job the military is good for:

Due to said well-organised flood defense, life-threatening disasters don't happen anymore and material-damaging ones are limited. The last big disaster was that 1970 flood on the Tisza (some ten thousand houses ruined). Of course, the current government will be proud if no dam-break will happen this time - under the previous government, the 2000 and 2001 Tisza floods (which broke records on the upper sections) didn't pass without dambreaks (but 'only' 222 resp. 964 homes ruined).

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Sun Apr 23rd, 2006 at 07:53:46 AM EST

Re: Extra (none / 0)

The President of the Republic, surrounded by five frightening yet laughable bodyguards in civilian clothes

Excellent picture, really laughable I agree!!

by Alex in Toulouse on Sun Apr 23rd, 2006 at 07:56:17 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Szeged 1879 (4.00 / 2)

...when 161 died and 100,000 became homeless:

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Sun Apr 23rd, 2006 at 07:57:27 AM EST

Re: Szeged 1879 (none / 0)

Some really old photos indeed. Is that approximately close to the island on Danube where the Sziget festival takes place every summer?

by lukewarm on Sun Apr 23rd, 2006 at 11:25:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Szeged 1879 (none / 0)

No, the flood is in Szeged and on the Tisza river, the Sziget festival is in Budapest on an island in the Danube. (There was a record flood on the Danube too, but its maximum long passed Budapest and is now in Romania; check my story three weeks ago.)

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Sun Apr 23rd, 2006 at 11:36:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Remember Bob on Earth's Day (+Floods) | 22 comments (22 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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