On the front page of the local section of today's local paper, it was reported:
- that the fire department was summoned by a fire alarm at a big supermarket. It turned out to be a balloon that had gotten itself in the laser detectors and was tripping the alarm. The fire department didn't have any ladders tall enough to retrieve it, so they in turn called the animal control department to bring a dart gun, which was used to shoot down the balloon.
- that the local airport was laid low by a mouse. It seems the mouse chewed through a cable on a transformer in a nearby hotel, which set off a chain reaction that caused a temporary power outage, delaying some flights. The mouse, alas, did not survive.
Though a rather more lively report was that the neo-Nazi political party NPD had a party meeting in Hannover, with some 500 attendees. The city tried everything it could to block them from having the meeting in the city's convention center, but legally there was nothing they could do, since the NPD is a registered political party. So the meeting went ahead -- oddly enough they had to share the building with a New Age esoteric trade show that had already been booked previously, and which decided to stay in spite of the neo-Nazis next door.
Panicked about a possible violent confrontation, 2,000 police were brought in from all over Germany to seal off the meeting.
In response, the hoi polloi of Hannover organized an anti-NPD rally, with leaders of all the major churches, other political parties, Jewish representatives, union leaders, leading business figures and so on participating in a rally at the opera house, then a march to the convention center, and culminating in a rally in front of the convention center, with the theme
Bunt statt braun (literally "colorful instead of brown", brown referring to nationalist extremism in German political jargon). In all, the police estimated 20,000 people joined the various rallies, which for a city of Hannover's size is pretty huge.
Thankfully, no serious confrontation happened -- one policeman was injured by a lefty radical breaking his hand (needless to say, the radical was arrested) and one NPD member was arrested for greeting the demonstrators with a Heil Hitler salute, but otherwise everything went peacefully and without incident.
Hannover's boring. And I like it that way.
