November 8, 2010

In the morning we went back to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Site. Mike had told us that the place we went to last time was run by King´s family and that across the street there was a museum run by the National Park Authorities which was much better. Strange setup. We did not see any indication at the family run museum that there actually was another one nearby.

In my opinion Hélène was much too kind when blogging about the center run by the family the other day. That place was a disgrace to the memory of Dr. King. The exposition was already disappointing 10 years ago. This time it looked like the only maintenance that had been done during the last 10 years had been the regular cleaning.

There was a wall with an overview of every year of his life after 1955. The paper was starting to get yellow and the corners worn in some cases. The boys were very interested and I ended up translating everything for Viktor. It was pretty embarrassing to have to skip two of the most important years, 1963 and 1966, because they were missing(!), as you can see below. Someone must have torn them down and they had not been replaced.

We were very happy that we went back to see the other museum, and the boys got to learn a lot more about Dr. King and the civil rights movement. It was difficult for Iseline to grasp what this was all about, but there was a separate small expo aimed at small children. Iseline was moved and impressed by this little girl:

Our kids have grown up with children of all skin colors around them and I found it very difficult to explain to them what had happened in the not too distant past.

There were many screens set up where videos where shown that documented some part of the struggle. All well made and thought provoking.

It seems so distant today, but racism is still alive all around us, even though it now often takes different forms and shapes than the crude way it was expressed some decades ago. Personally I find the current trends in Europe quite disturbing, with more and more political parties winning votes by playing on people´s fears and subconscious tendency for racism.

The feeling that different races have different values is unfortunately still subconsciously alive in most of us. I remember reading the autobiography of a black man living in South Africa some time ago. In it he tells the story of when he is outside South Africa and boards a flight with a black pilot. He is terrified of the thought that his own life is dependent on a black pilot´s ability to safely fly a plane. His first thought is to get off the plane immediately, but he manages to control himself. The man was Nelson Mandela. Even he had not been left untainted by the racism around him.

The museum was not exceptional, but it was good enough, and it had very powerful stories to tell. What a contrast to the Coca Cola museum!

The so-called 4D movie (Who came up with the idea of calling water splashes and a few blowing fans a new dimension? Don´t marketing people learn that a new dimension must contain infinite copies of all the other dimensions?) at the Coca Cola museum was for me the symbol of how capitalism in no way is the most efficient way to spend a society´s resources. That enormous movie theater with all the bells and whistles and the production of their movie must have cost several decades of MLK center budgets. And they used it to show a movie that was all special effects and no substance. They had no other story to tell than that Coke makes you happy and that they are good at logistics. The kids said flat out that they didn´t like it.

It reminded me of the famous statement Steve Jobs used to get John Sculley to jump from Pepsi to Apple: “Do you want to sell sugar water for the the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?”

Am I drifting again? Sorry.

Outside the museum was this colorful wall:

Next we headed over to the Georgia Aquarium, the world´s largest aquarium measured in volume of water. Outside the entrance Hélène took this beautiful picture showing the Coca Cola museum and parts of downtown Atlanta.

The kids loved the aquarium. Especially impressive was the tunnel under an enormous water tank with no less than 4 whale sharks (the world´s largest fish) swimming around with many, many other species. You could even sign up for swimming in that tank(!) in the evening.

Iseline and a penguin giving each other a stare:

Good bye:

Hello!

The ray and shark(!) touch pool was a winner:

In the evening Hélène brought the kids with her to a specialty shop to get industrial strength mosquito repellent and some other stuff we need for the Amazon. South America is not many days away!

I had been invited by Mike to meet some of his students. We had a great chat for a little over an hour with many good questions from the students. It once again reminded me that I have to get started on writing that book as soon as this trip is over.

In the evening I set a new record on the Chuck Norris charging station:

3 iPods, 1 iPhone, 1 camera battery, 2 external laptop batteries, 2 laptops and 3 iPads all charging at the same time. Still there is one mains outlet and 3 more USB outlets to spare. All this from one outlet on the wall. Are you impressed or are you impressed?

Eirik

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