The Ultimate Question – When? Where?

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What time and place would I travel to if there would be a time machine? My blogging friend Peter, from Peter’s pondering, asked me that question a while back, and as so often, I didn’t have an answer right away. However, I thought I found a clever way out because he had mentioned there would be no return and a one-way ticket in a time machine didn’t seem desirable at all.

London Bridge Is Down

For the death of the monarch, there is a sophisticated protocol that specifies the next few days in Great Britain – summarized under the code name “Operation London Bridge”. Created by the Queen herself, to assure everything will go as planned, while the nation will still be under shock.

War

He is risen, who lay long asleep,
Risen again from caverns deep.
In the twilight, the towers, huge and unknown,
And with one black hand, he crushes the moon.

How Santa Claus was born

Almost every child knows either Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, St. Nick, or Sinterklaas. A long list with different names for every country and they all look the same, or similar. Red coat, black boots, poodle cap, and a long, white beard.

Angela Merkel -Or What Wikipedia doesn’t Know

Roulade, with red cabbage. One of my favorite dishes as well.

I have a love-hate relationship with Wikipedia and deal with it in the same, almost insane way I deal with Amazon. I use it because it’s convenient, I trust neither. Both companies (or services) give me for a short time the illusion that they actually might care about me, the paying customer, or in Wikipedia’s case, the frugal donor, who dares to only give them the $1 they actually asked for. Come to think of it, perhaps it’s not so much a donation, but the tip I am willing to pay for a flawed service.

My Love for Boring Films

In 9th grade, after reading about Joan of Arc, we watched Carl Dreyer’s 1928 The Passion of Joan of Arc, a French silent historical film. Some of the girls in our girl’s only boarding school were quickly bored, and continued to look at the teenage magazines they had smuggled into the auditorium, the rest of us were mesmerized by the screen.

Happy Birthday America! How it began

“Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.”
– Words on the Liberty Bell

Around the middle of the 18th Century, the thirteen colonies which made up part of the English Empire in the New World, found it increasingly difficult to accept being ruled by a king sitting 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean. They were tired of paying taxes but independence was only achieved step by step with painful effort. The inhabitants of the colonies could not forget that they owed allegiance to British citizens and to King George III.

Memorial Day – It was 1866

1866 the United States was recovering from the long and bloody Civil War between the North and the South. Surviving soldiers came home, some with missing limbs, and all with stories to tell. Henry Welles, a drugstore owner in Waterloo, New York, heard the stories and had an idea. He suggested that all the shops in town close for one day to honor the soldiers who were killed in the Civil War and were buried in the Waterloo cemetery. On the morning of May 5, the townspeople placed flowers, wreaths and crosses on the graves of the Northern soldiers in the cemetery. At about the same time, Retired Major General Jonathan A. Logan planned another ceremony, this time for the soldiers who survived the war. He led the veterans through town to the cemetery to decorate their comrades’ graves with flags. It was not a happy celebration, but a memorial. The townspeople called it Decoration Day.

Don’t Do The Time

Soon, the political affiliation will matter more than ever. A new bill the house will vote on next week, will ask prosecutors and judges to be lenient IF the suspect belongs to their political party. For example IF the state is run by Democrats, most likely in the future democratic criminals will get away with a slap on the wrist rather than be locked up behind bars, same goes vice versa for Republican states.

The Dark Side to Mother’s Day

Anna Jarvis

Mother’s Day seems quite harmless. You invite your mother to brunch, buy flowers, maybe even some chocolates and you enjoy good times together. 

But the history of this modern holiday is marked by a rampage of conflicts, controversies, and consumerism. Mother’s Day has a dark side and who other than someone like me- who doesn’t celebrate Mother’s Day- should point it out.