My travels in Europe

My first trip to Europe was in 1987 when I attended a scientific conference in Cambridge, England. I always remember my father telling me about his visit to Cambridge when he lived in England during WWII. My visit there in 1987 lit a travel spark in me that is still alive over thirty years later. I’ve been thinking about how many European countries/places I’ve had the privilege of traveling to since then, many of them thanks to the scientific conferences that we've attended over the years:

• Austria: Innsbruck
• Belgium: Brussels, Leuven
• The Czech Republic: Prague, Karlstejn
• Denmark: Copenhagen, Aarhus, Roskilde
• England: London, Cambridge, Oxford, Keswick, Salisbury, Bath, Wiltshire (Stonehenge)
• Finland: Helsinki
• France: Paris, Versailles, Caen/Normandy, Montpellier, Saint Raphael, Frejus, St. Tropez, Cannes, Marseilles, Besancon
• Germany: Berlin, Leipzig
• Holland: Amsterdam, Delft, Lisse (Keukenhof tulip park)
• Hungary: Budapest
• Ireland: Dublin, Banagher, Adare, Galway, Sligo, Drumcliff, Monaghan (Castle Leslie)
• Italy: Milan, Rome, Caserta, Naples, Venice, Perugia, Assisi, Barano & Casamicciola (Ischia)
• Norway: Bergen, Trondheim, Risør, Arendal, Kristiansand, Sandefjord, Ålesund, Stavanger, Molde, Fredrikstad, Elverum
• Scotland: Edinburgh, Glasgow
• Sweden: Stockholm, Visby (Gotland), Strømstad, the Koster islands
• Switzerland: Zurich, Lausanne
• Wales: Holyhead (ferry to Dublin)

There are still so many countries/places I want to see—Spain, Portugal, Greece, Poland, and more of Italy and Germany. Hopefully I'll get to some of these places when my husband and I retire and have more time to explore, and/or together with good friends, God willing. One thing I do know--don't leave all your travel dreams to some unknown future time. If you have the chance to travel at present, take it. 

An autumn weekend in Stockholm

There is what is called 'autumn vacation' in Norway ('høstferie'), dating back to a time when the farmers needed help with their harvests, so children were allowed to take a week free from school. I don't know if there are/were similar traditions in the USA. I do know that we never had a week of autumn vacation as children growing up in New York State, although there were single-day school holidays scattered throughout autumn and winter. In any case, both children and parents often take a week off in the early part of October here in Norway. I've never taken any autumn vacation before, but this year, I decided to do so. I took a few days off, as did my husband, and one of the things we decided to do was to spend a weekend in Stockholm, Sweden. We drove through some beautiful countryside and saw some gorgeous autumn foliage before we arrived in Stockholm on Friday afternoon. We stayed at the Elite Palace Hotel on Sankt Eriksgatan street (https://www.elite.se/en/hotels/stockholm/palace-hotel/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=google-local&utm_content=stockholm_palace), where we had stayed once before when my husband was in Stockholm for a PhD defense where he served on the doctoral committee that reviewed the student's work. That was in November or December 2006, when it was considerably colder outside; I remember that we visited Millesgården (https://www.millesgarden.se/home.aspx) in 2006 and it was cold and rainy; the museum's cafe served hot pumpkin soup with feta cheese in it, and it was wonderful. The weather this past weekend was temperate, no rain, cloudy with some sunshine--perfect for walking. We did some exploring of the neighborhood around the hotel on Friday evening and ended up at an Italian restaurant called Grappa for dinner. On Saturday morning, we drove to a part of town called Pålsundet, a small strait (or canal) with many beautiful wooden boats located in that area, some on land, most still on the water. Since we had booked a early-afternoon three hour lunch cruise around the archipelago that is Stockholm, we made our way back to the hotel, parked the car, and then walked down to the main harbor to meet our boat. The boat trip brought us past many small islands dotted with lovely homes, and is well-worth taking as it is not expensive (about 90 dollars for two people including lunch, which was more like dinner). And when it was over, we walked back to the hotel through some lovely neighborhoods (the architecture in Stockholm is beautiful), and ate a late dinner at the Bishop Arms pub adjoining the hotel. I calculated that we walked a total of six miles on Saturday. On Sunday, we had a leisurely breakfast and just hung around the hotel until we checked out and headed for home.

I took some photos of our trip to Pålsundet, on our boat trip, and of Stockholm, and have posted some of them here. Enjoy.......

Running for the bus

Vanity Fair--opening

And here's the opening to each episode of the Vanity Fair TV series.....I highly recommend the series--this is what makes television worth watching!

Great version of All Along the Watchtower by Afterhere

This is not Jimi Hendrix's version of All Along the Watchtower, or Bob Dylan's either (he wrote it but it's Hendrix's version that most of us remember). This is Afterhere's version, and it's great! I love it. It's recently been used as the opening credits theme music to the TV series Vanity Fair (another great British TV series--check it out here https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7076630/?ref_=rvi_tt).

I think you'll like Afterhere's version of this classic and enduring song.......

A gorgeous autumn day for working in the garden

Today was one of those gorgeous blue-sky days so characteristic of early autumn--warm and sunny, with a temperature around 60 degrees F. There was no wind, so at midday, it was pleasant to be outdoors in the warm sunshine. I went first to the local Plantasjen garden center and purchased two mixed sets of bulbs (crocuses, hyacinths, anemones, muscari, and two kinds of allium) from Holland, as well as one package of hyacinths and one package of tulips. I also purchased two ornamental kale plants. I then went to the local bakery and bought myself a sandwich and something to drink, and walked down to the garden. I got there around lunchtime and stayed until 3 pm, in which time I ate a leisurely lunch and managed to plant many different kinds of bulbs for next spring's blooming. In fact, I planted a total of 120 bulbs. Half of the bulbs will produce flowers of purplish-blue color, the other half will produce flowers of white color.

I made use of areas of the garden that I have not used up until this point, e.g. I planted crocus and allium bulbs under the Emperor rose bush which really is a tree at this point in time. I also planted allium bulbs along the fence that runs along the west end of the garden, and the tulip bulbs on the left side of the greenhouse. Some of the hyacinth bulbs were planted near the garden entrance, and some behind the hops plants on the east side of the garden. Hopefully there will be a profusion of flowers next spring.

Ornamental kale--photo from http://gardenclub.homedepot.com/5-things-know-flowering-kale-cabbage/

Behaving decently

I've read a lot of the commentaries and articles dealing with Brett Kavanaugh--whether he lied or didn't, what he lied about, his indignation and self-righteous anger on the stand, and so on. Personally I just don't trust him, since he appears to have lied about words like boofing and devil's triangle, among others (both of which have clear sexual connotations). He wants to make us believe that he was a decent young man with only the best motives where women were concerned. I don't believe that he was so decent. Any time massive amounts of alcohol are involved in order to have a 'good time', a decent mindset and decent behavior go out the window. It's guaranteed that something will go wrong or someone will get hurt. During my teenage years, young men drove when they were drunk, and ended up hurting (or killing) themselves and often others. One young man, quarterback of his high school football team, ended up a paraplegic after a horrific car crash that killed another occupant in the car. And so on. Driving drunk was not unusual then, but that changed dramatically when I reached my mid-twenties and MADD (Mothers against drunk driving--see https://www.madd.org/about-us/our-story/ for more info) forced the drinking age laws to change.

Society often says 'boys will be boys' whenever their 'bad' behavior is brought up, whether that bad behavior is sexual, alcohol-related, or drug-related. We let teenage boys off the hook when we use that expression, as though they somehow deserve to be excused for their bad behavior. They don't, and neither do the teenage girls who behave similarly. Unfortunately, it's often teenage girls who end up getting hurt more often than teenage boys, especially if sexual assault/rape enters the picture.

I know that it's possible that men and women can change, so I won't argue that point. I went to school with male and female bullies, most of whom grew up and became well-functioning, non-bullying adults. But nevertheless, they were not very nice persons when we were growing up. Their behavior was not excused however in my day; it was clamped down upon by parents and schools. All forms of sexual harassment and abuse should also be clamped down upon--by parents, schools and workplaces--whenever it appears. We don't need a lot of new regulations and laws; they exist already. We need to have them enforced; we need to enforce them. The abusers and harassers should be punished. Rapists should go to prison for a minimum of twenty years. They should not be rewarded with cushy positions and a 'get out of jail free' card whenever they've done something wrong. Angry privileged white men defend each other and protect each other. They let each other get away with bad behavior. They call in favors, they make deals, they pay off those they've abused/raped, and they get away with it. They are above the law and are allowed to remain there. They whine about the impact of hearings and investigations on their families; but they never once stop to consider the impact of their sexual assaults/rapes on the women they assault/rape, and on the families of those women. The narcissism, selfishness, and sociopathic tendencies in these men are appalling. Sociopaths are defined by behavior that is antisocial and often criminal; they lack a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience. That pretty much sums up the behavior of many of the male politicians in government these days, as well as many of the men in the entertainment business and in the business world generally. It seems to me that many men simply hate women, and I really don't understand why. How we got to this point, I don't know.

I leave you with an excellent opinion article--Decent Men Don't Do These Things--published in The New York Times on September 24th: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/24/opinion/kavanaugh-sexual-assault-blasey-testimony.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

It's food for thought. I believe we need a national movement (like MADD) that stresses the urgency of learning how to behave decently again. We could hope our current president embraced such a movement and learned something from it as well.

Nature is a good reminder of all that's right with the world

I saw this video for the first time tonight, and loved it. Beautifully-filmed nature shots, a reminder that the world really is a wonderful place. Every time I need a reminder, I'll check out this video......

The day of reckoning is here

It is perhaps no coincidence that there are so many sexual abuse scandals happening all around us--in politics (Brett Kavanaugh), in the Catholic church (pedophile priests), in the entertainment industry (#metoo, Harvey Weinstein, and Bill Cosby), and in the workplace (where to start--there are so many stories of bad bosses and toxic workplaces). These worlds were the playgrounds of men for many years, far too many years. Centuries of power placed in the hands of men, many who behaved indecently toward others, some who did not. The former behaved in ways that kept women and minorities out of the circles dominated by men, or if women and minorities were allowed in, kept them out of positions of power via harassment, abuse, sexual harassment, and sexual abuse. Make no mistake--all forms of harassment and abuse are power plays--exertions of power by the strong over those they perceive as weaker than they are. The harassers harass because they can, because they have the license to do so. They have enough power and money to prevent those they harass from fighting back and demanding justice. They can victimize others, but those others may after some time refuse to be labeled as victims and may fight back, and that is what is happening now in 2018, after years of not fighting back. The 'weaker' parties are ultimately not victims of the powerful. But the centuries-long imbalance between the powerful and non-powerful perpetuated the bad behavior by the powerful. I think what is happening now, however extreme it may be, is necessary in order for us to move forward as a nation and as a civilized world society. This bad behavior is not just occurring in the USA.

The day of reckoning is here. We simply cannot continue down the path on which we have been going. We know about all of the things that were wrong in the past, even the recent past. What we need now is change. We need open doors, we need a breath of fresh air. Out with the dinosaurs (of which Trump is one), in with the new. New ways of thinking and behaving. Transparency and integrity in leaders, be they men or women. Ethical behavior, justice for all. We have to believe again and to have hope. As is written in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The word 'men' can be stricken from this document and replaced with 'people', so that everyone understands that this document grants these freedoms to all, not to just one gender. It will be an extremely painful process to reckon with past grievances, but it is high time that we did. All real change is painful.

A quote from Jackson Katz's book The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help

I haven't read Jackson Katz's book The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help, but I am impressed by this quote from his book. It's uncomfortable to read it, and yet, if you are a woman, you learn to do many of these things already when you are quite young. Here is the quote:

“I draw a line down the middle of a chalkboard, sketching a male symbol on one side and a female symbol on the other. Then I ask just the men: What steps do you guys take, on a daily basis, to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted? At first there is a kind of awkward silence as the men try to figure out if they've been asked a trick question. The silence gives way to a smattering of nervous laughter. Occasionally, a young guy will raise his hand and say, 'I stay out of prison.' This is typically followed by another moment of laughter, before someone finally raises his hand and soberly states, 'Nothing. I don't think about it.' Then I ask women the same question. What steps do you take on a daily basis to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted? Women throughout the audience immediately start raising their hands. As the men sit in stunned silence, the women recount safety precautions they take as part of their daily routine. Here are some of their answers: Hold my keys as a potential weapon. Look in the back seat of the car before getting in. Carry a cell phone. Don't go jogging at night. Lock all the windows when I sleep, even on hot summer nights. Be careful not to drink too much. Don't put my drink down and come back to it; make sure I see it being poured. Own a big dog. Carry Mace or pepper spray. Have an unlisted phone number. Have a man's voice on my answering machine. Park in well-lit areas. Don't use parking garages. Don't get on elevators with only one man, or with a group of men. Vary my route home from work. Watch what I wear. Don't use highway rest areas. Use a home alarm system. Don't wear headphones when jogging. Avoid forests or wooded areas, even in the daytime. Don't take a first-floor apartment. Go out in groups. Own a firearm. Meet men on first dates in public places. Make sure to have a car or cab fare. Don't make eye contact with men on the street. Make assertive eye contact with men on the street.”

― Jackson Katz, The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help


I find it sad that we have come to this point in society, where women cannot really trust men to treat them respectfully. Where women cannot trust men to help them if they are threatened with sexual assault (when the men that could help just stand there and watch as their friends rape a woman). Where women are treated like objects for men's sexual (often violent) proclivities. Where 'no' is always taken as 'yes'. What has brought us to this point? Has hardcore porn played a role? I think it has. But of course that view is poo-pooed by so many people who want so desperately to be liberal in every way. I remember my father, whose view on men was not very promising, to say the least. He would always tell me that a lot of men were just no good and that I should watch out for myself. When I was young, I didn't want to believe that what he was saying was true. But as I got older, I understood. I have met many good men, but I have also met others who were simply the opposite--crude, rude, sexually-aggressive, violent, hate-filled, and envious. Men who think everything is a joke. Men who disrespect women by interrupting them constantly, belittling what they say, overpowering them by yelling, and so on. Men who become angry when told 'no'. Men who abuse women verbally (telling them they're stupid, for example), psychologically, and physically. The list goes on. So if Jackson Katz can teach men how to behave respectfully toward women, kudos to him. He deserves a star in my book.

The world needs a giant wake-up call. I think this is it.

Everyone in the world needs to read this article. I posted this on my Facebook page today, and some of my friends commented and said they were horrified by it. I am as well.

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-18/china-social-credit-a-model-citizen-in-a-digital-dictatorship/10200278?pfmredir=sm&sf197878142=1&smid=Page%3A+ABC+Australia-Facebook_Organic&WT.tsrc=Facebook_Organic

We need to wake up fast to what is really going on around us. Look up from your cell phones and see what is happening. China is just the start of this insanity. If you don't think it can happen in your own country, think again. We only need the right combination of circumstances for it to take hold. This is scary stuff, people. We need to fight this kind of digital control with every ounce of our beings. Otherwise, there will be no humanity left after these types of governments and dictators gain complete control of us. I don't want this kind of society for the future, and I will fight against it in any way possible. Please share this article; unfortunately, it is not fake news. I checked around online, and found other articles dealing with this story:

https://mindmatters.today/2018/09/digital-dictatorship/

https://www.realclearscience.com/2018/09/20/china_is_building_a_digital_dictatorship_282883.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eViswN602_k

I do understand why some people want to go off the grid and live without internet, without an online presence. The problem is that almost all the things we do nowadays are connected in some way, shape, or form to internet--banking, stock trading, shopping, social media, smartphones, travel, careers, reading, music, and so on. Our lives may not be 'tracked' in the same way as they will be in China by 2020, but our digital lives are alive and thriving online as we speak. It will not surprise me if major companies dabbling in AI will find a way to tie all our digital information together and begin to exert control over us. Most of that type of control will have to do with marketing--pressuring us to buy this or that by defining our needs for us. But if the government begins to do that, it will be the end of freedom as we know and take for granted--the end of being able to think, speak and write freely. It will not be a world that I will want to live in.



 

Check out Bill Bramhall's political cartoons for September

Another online item to check out--this time it's the totally spot on political cartoons courtesy of Bramhall. You'll find them in the New York Daily News:
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/nydn-bramhall-cartoons-for-september-2018-20180908-photogallery.html

What to say about these cartoons, except that they're great. If you need to know what's going on in the world of Trump, you'll find out by reading these cartoons. He skewers Trump. Thanks for telling it like it is!

Check out Tappan Zee Bridge@oldtzb on Twitter

If you check out one thing today online, check out this Twitter account--Tappan Zee Bridge@oldtzb:  https://twitter.com/oldtzb

If the old Tappan Zee Bridge could speak, I am certain that this is what it would be saying. Kudos to the person behind this account. I love it. The first thing you read when you access the account is the following (just to give you an idea of the intelligent sense of humor that defines the entire account):

Tappan Zee Bridge@oldtzb
"Bridging since 1955. Living like there's no 2019".

Thank you for giving a voice to the feelings we all have about the old bridge now that the new bridge is up and 'bridging'. For those of us who are nearly the same age as the old bridge, it's a wonderful way to deal with saying goodbye to the bridge in a humorous, intelligent and pointed way. Many of the tweets are just spot on.

Here is a recent newspaper article talking about this Twitter account:  https://eu.lohud.com/story/news/local/rockland/2018/09/21/tappan-zee-bridge-silent-all-these-years-speaks-out-twitter/1366539002/

Please, keep on tweeting. Sincerely, a loyal fan. 

A dog rescued by a kind person

If this video doesn't break your heart, I don't know what will. Even though this poor dog was rescued, it breaks my heart to know that someone or some family left him/her behind when evacuating their home due to hurricane Florence. If you have a pet, it is part of your family, and you should take your pet with you in situations like this. Your pets love you and trust you to do the right thing; how can you live with yourself if you don't make the effort to take them with you when you evacuate?

I thought about this story for hours after I saw the video. It made me cry, and that's a good thing, because I haven't been able to cry much lately. I think I've become too inured to the crazy, cold, inhumane and unjust world we live in. I need to see more positive stories; I need to know that there are still good people in the world. Because there are. All the media ever tells us about are all the bad people and situations in the world.

https://www.facebook.com/CBSNewYork/videos/263733037814957/

A good song by Dennis Lloyd--Nevermind

The sex abuse scandal in the German Catholic church

And now the statistics for Germany--it's enough to make your mind reel. What were the people involved thinking? That it would remain covered-up forever? Why did no one in the church's bureaucratic organization stop and say, 'no, I won't be a part of the cover-up and I won't silence my voice or my conscience. I will speak up and speak out'. Just the fact that the church wanted to control how the research results were published/utilized is appalling--I quote: "because the church wanted to reserve its right to control the resulting research papers — and under certain circumstances even ban their publication". The church apparently believes its own hype--that it is judge, jury, and executioner with no accountability to anyone outside the church, and this way of looking at dealing with crime in the church is just plain arrogant and wrong. If I am a typical example of the faithful, my trust in the church to make intelligent and moral decisions is gone. Just plain gone. And sadly, I doubt that it will be coming back. I believe I do a better job of running my life and dealing with moral decisions than the church will ever do.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/world/europe/german-church-sex-abuse-children.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur

I'm guessing we'll getting the statistics for other involved countries soon, because there is nothing inherently 'American' about this scandal. It all has to do with the kingdom called the Vatican. Somehow in the midst of all the power and wealth, Christ and what he stood for fell by the wayside.