Category Society
Man’s Inhumanity
The first question I thought when visiting the Dachau concentration camp was: “How could they not have known?” Of course, many Germans did know of the concentration camps and bought the lies about what was happening there. It was easier to pretend than to confront the reality. After all, as it said on the gates, […]
American Dreams
It has crept up quickly almost without my noticing – it is a presidential election year in the United States. Four years of Donald Trump has rushed by. Not that it has really been four years. With all the publicity surrounding the Trump impeachment process, it seems no-one is paying much attention to the upcoming […]
The Two Billion Dollar Lemon
Citizens of Ottawa can be forgiven for thinking their municipal government has squandered a couple of billion taxpayers dollars in exchange for some sour fruit, in this case a large lemon. The train is running in Ottawa again, or at least it was Friday when I wrote this. No guarantees that will continue. When […]
Christmas Passed
There were things I missed by being in Canada last month, especially the Christmas tree in Sulzburg’s town square. For me it is a highlight of the season. The tree is still there, but the lights have been removed. Soon it will be taken down and most of the branches stripped from it, Then it […]
Under The Munster
There are a lot of important people buried in the Basel Munster (Minster in English – the large former Roman Catholic cathedral). Doctors, physicians, politicians and others who obviously had some status in society. I didn’t recognize any names, other than Erasmus. And I had no idea how he got from Rotterdam to Basel – […]
Misleading Numbers
This post, from March 2015, was the most viewed post of 2019 here at Random Thoughts From Lorne. I think its popularity must have something to do with search engines, though I can’t figure out what the trigger is. It seems to be increasing in popularity – more people read it just last month than […]
Testament of Time
I understand why this piece, originally published in February 2015, was popular in 2019. There has been a movement in Turkey for a number of years to convert the Hagia Sophia from a museum into a mosque and it seemed there was increased talk of that this past year. This was the second-most read post […]
The Building Project
This blog was essentially born as I wrestled with some thoughts during a European vacation in the summer of 2014. This post, from October of that year, shows some of those thoughts, and was the seventh most viewed of 2019. At the end of the First World War, Winston Churchill suggested that the town of […]
Stoning Revisited
As we count down the 10 most popular posts here in 2019, the one in the eighth slot was one of only two actually from the year. The outrage seems a little contrived to me. Or maybe it was a slow news day The headline said Brunei, a small southeast Asian nation, was implementing the […]
Let It Snow?
Finally! Though I’m not sure I like it after all. All this fall I have been telling people how much I was looking forward to a Canadian winter, that the area of Germany we live in lacks winters, and my new boots are still in their box more than two years after I bought them. […]
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