It was in 1818 and they say it’s all the fault of a poor church mouse. A few years prior, Napoleon suffered defeat at Waterloo, and they exiled him to the island of St Helena, one of the most remote islands in the south Atlantic. That was far, far away from the Austrian countryside in which our poor church mouse lived. An Austrian Winter...
The moonlight sonata is a piano piece by Ludwig van Beethoven that he wrote in 1801. Moonlight sonata is also the code name that planners of the German Luftwaffe gave their raid on the British city of Coventry in the night from November 14 to 15 in 1940. It makes one wonder what people think when they call their plans to destroy a city like...
It feels that no day goes by without someone announcing that they can predict the end of the world. It’s next Tuesday at 5 pm. Those predictions come with a deluge of bible verses that allegedly prove the point. And then doomsday comes, and the sun sets on another failed doomsday prophet. The predictions would almost be funny if these questionable...
Some believe capitalism is God’s favorite economic system. It would follow that God also endorses the sophisticated financial system that makes capitalism work. However, when we open the bible, we read in Deuteronomy: “You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on provisions, interest on anything that is...
The hunt was good and the people gathered around the camp fire are feasting. Nothing beats those juicy fresh strips of game roasted over an open fire. The enticing scent fills the air. There was a time when the neighboring clan took the smell of cooked food as an invitation to raid the camp. The one with the bigger stick is the king of the world...
Jerusalem is a holy place for three world religions. At any given time, the city is full of political radicals, religious zealots, pious pilgrims and cash-strapped archaeologists. That the sun scorches the earth for most of the year does not help the peaceful coexistence of an often volatile mix of people. Too many seek God in mutually...
What do you expect when you visit a farm? Maybe fields with crops, or pastures with cattle, pigs, chicken and a picturesque farmer on a tractor. I visited a farm in Washington state recently. Along the shores of the Elwa River on the Olympic Penisula the Wild Edge Farm crew grows crops and raises animals in a biological and sustainable way. They...
The first thing anyone will notice about your vessel is the smell of death, desperation and suffering. You’re the captain of a slave ship sailing the middle passage. You set sail in merry old England to trade the fruits of the emerging industrial revolution. Your business partners in West Africa will pay you with black gold; slaves. Your...
A destroyed city has a certain smell. Dust of smashed bricks mingles with the sweet stench of bodies that are still buried under the rubble. There is a faint whiff of phosphor, the main ingredient of incendiary bombs. It is overlaid with the odor of cooking fires. They are boiling rutabaga, the staple of the German diet in the Berlin of 1945. It...
