I heard you Barack, forget Nature and colour schemes

When world leaders gather at a funeral I always get a feeling of unease. Maybe I am just too sceptical but I can't help wonder if they attend because they want to pay their respect to the deceased or because they want to bask in the shine and glory the deceased has left. Looking at how respectful world leaders were by posting selfies on twitter during Mandela's memorial service I get the impression they are there for the second reason, not for the first.
Also it is striking that in all speeches I heard during the service not a single one apologised to Mandela and the South Africans. Apologise? Yes indeed apologise. UK and US supported Apartheid until just before Mandela was released. CIA helped jail Mandela  in 1962. UK and US put Mandela on their terrorist list. The US kept him on the terrorist list until 2008!
Also I heard Obama say following:
"There are too many of us who happily embrace Madiba's legacy of racial reconciliation, but passionately resist even modest reforms that would challenge chronic poverty and growing inequality.
There are too many leaders who claim solidarity with Madiba's struggle for freedom, but do not tolerate dissent from their own people. And there are too many of us who stand on the sidelines, comfortable in complacency or cynicism when our voices must be heard."

I heard you Barack. You want a place in history books? Then go and really do what you preach and maybe the world will become a better place in some parts of the world.

In the mean time lets listen to N'Kosi Sikeleli, South African's national anthem in a a-typical but very good and powerful version by Perpetuum Jazzile:

The Nobel price winners received their price on the same day as the Mandela memorial so that news got a bit snowed under. There is one article that I recommend reading because Randy Schekman (winner of the Nobel price for medicine) declared he will no longer send papers to the top scientific magazines. Why? Because: "Leading academic journals are distorting the scientific process and represent a "tyranny" that must be broken. Schekman said pressure to publish in "luxury" journals encouraged researchers to cut corners and pursue trendy fields of science instead of doing more important work. The problem was exacerbated, he said, by editors who were not active scientists but professionals who favoured studies that were likely to make a splash."
You can read the full article here.

Talking to a pilot this week, he told me he got on an Alpha Jet flight. Blimey! I would love to have a go as well. It reminded me of the lively colour schemes that our Belgian Airforce came up with every year before the start of the airshow season. Ok, granted, not all were works of art, but colourful they were. Below a selection of the schemes between 1989 and 1994.

The best Belgian colourscheme ever was not on an Alpha Jet but on a Belgian Air Force Mirage V. I shot below picture in Bierset (then still partly a military airfield) of BR15 in the celebration scheme for 70 Years of the 42nd Squadron Mephisto. What a beauty!