#germans got one last shot at being an actual country with east germany and they blew it

[revindicatedbyhistory]

enough discussions about whether israel has a right to exist (it doesn´t). let´s now discuss: does germany have a right to exist? the answer also is no

[siriusist]

Top ten favorite things and least favorite things about the Spanish Princess. GO.

Okay, this is definitely not going to be a top ten anything, considering I’m only three episodes in, but:

Things I Appreciate About the Spanish Princess (the first three episodes):

The depiction of Spain as a diverse country full of different cultures, peoples, and religions.

Having black characters as main characters on the show, especially since so much of continental Europe DID have a close history with black people/POC, either from Africa, people who were descendants from freed people from from the Roman Empire, or from the near East.

The comment on the differences of bathing habits between 16th century England and the rest of Europe. A lot of what we did know about basic cleanliness is tracked more in 16th century texts from Italy and Germany, but it would be expected that Spain would follow suit. Washing hands before meals was a thing, as well as washing hands and face in the morning. Although it’s obviously after the timeline of the Spanish Princess and a neighbouring country, there are ‘Travel Tales’ from the early 1600s which state that Germans “strew Pine Leaves powder’d, and all sorts of Herbs and Flowers upon the Floor; which, together with the Lye make a very agreeable Scent.”There is a scented lye-based soap recipe in The treasurie of commodious conceits, & hidden secrets by John Partridge (1573). So cleanliness WAS a thing for the rest of Europe, probably more so than England, and I appreciated that getting a low-key shoutout.

The weird-ass superiority of England despite the fact that it actually WAS in a precarious situation financially and politically at the time, which in retrospect, is pretty laughable considering what other empires (including Spain) were on its horizon.

The fact that we get to see a young and beautiful Catherine of Aragorn, because usually in English-language films we see her as some old bat tucked away with her religious fanatic daughter who’s basically a thorn in the side of Anne Boleyn and not her own person who probably was at that time more valuable of a “catch” than Henry or Arthur was to her.

Dumbass ladies in waiting hooking up with married dumbass English lords because we all know that was a thing that happened.

Things That Annoy the FUCK Out of Me About The Spanish Princess (the first three episodes):

The fact that Queen Isabella is portrayed as this badass warrior queen instead of someone who basically gave the Jews four months to GTFO of Spain and it took hundreds of years for Jewish people to return there. WAHAY FORCED DIASPORA.

That despite there being some historical record that Christopher Colombus shmoozed with the best of them (Especially in sucking up to Queen Isabella for money for his travels), there’s something inherently problematic of portraying him as a weirdly paternal figure considering, you know, history. Even though it would make sense for him to be weirdly suck-y to Catherine because he got the money for his travels from her family, just being like OH HO HO HE GAVE HER A TRINKET TO “GUIDE HER HOME” as a weird historical character drop and so far not mentioning him ever again is a bit cringe.

Queen Elizabeth actually from all accounts was super chill and nice to Catherine- at least, up to the point Arthur died. So it’s a bit odd that she has this weird low-key rivalry with her considering her husband acknowledged her beauty, which she basically low-key trapped him into saying on the show. Cause, ya know. WOMEN. AM I RIGHT.

I mean, it’s a Star show. So I know there’s going to be unnecessary sexual tension and nudity. But the unnecessary sexual tension and nudity.

Speaking of the unnecessary sexual tension and nudity- the fact that they aged King Henry the Eighth up from an eleven year old to an annoying ass douchebro to make some forced story about how he sexed Catherine up in the historical equivalent of slipping into his brother’s DMs- Ew. ALL the ew.

Also the fact that even if they HAD aged him up, even in his early twenties historically pretty much no one had a bad word to say about young Henry- he was literally considered a renaissance man. Chivalrous and kind. We all know what he turned into- but it would have been so much better to have him be that in the first place instead of people just telling us he’s truly artistic and has a ‘heart of a poet’ when he’s literally doing the Tudor version of swapping sex DMs with his friends. Ew.

Also even the fact that sex was discussed early in Tudor England by virtue of the fact that everyone had to care about procreation ten times earlier and would actually sometimes do what Margaret Pole does in this episode and listened to the door to make sure they were actually doing something is very true. What is NOT true is that even in Tudor England, would be an eleven year old listening in on his brother. Not unless even by Tudor standards, that was a weird-ass family.

Oh, and the fact that Henry could freely send off communication if presumably despite the actor looking 26 he was supposed to be under Arthur’s age who was 15 when he died? Like, sorry. I don’t care if you’re the prince of the realm- you got some shit to say- some courtier is going to check it twice. Especially if you’re 14 if we’re fucking with ages already.

Any time it reads like a gratuitous shirt off/layers off scene. Like, did Lina REALLLLLY need her layers pulled off seductively and a shot of her legs randomly for like, three seconds too long? REALLLLY?

Also I know I’m going to rage at the shirtless leather pant scene of Henry already coming up, and I haven’t even come up to episode four. Because Henry the Eighth, as we ALL know, was secretly Jim Morrison from The Doors.

OH AND LAST THING- The fact that Arthur and Catherine consummated their marriage at all? Like, I know its a Star show, so they’re going to go for sex over not, but the whole basis of the tension and the creation of a fucking CHURCH was that they weren’t sure if she’d consummated her relationship with Arthur, Henry assumed she did when it was convenient for him, and then his marriage was considered impure and invalid, because he lay with his brother’s wife. It would have been so much better if we still didn’t know if they lay together either way, because then we as the audience would be guessing along with them. But Star can’t turn down a superfluous sex scene am I right.

LAST LAST THING: Isn’t Keening a Gaelic/Irish thing historically?

I’ll stop now.

[2theburgs]

Day 7: Canadian Tour Day

This morning we got up at a decent time so we could get to a number of sites today. It’s been really nice here, we’ve been fortunate not to have any rain, but it certainly is chilly in the morning and evening. There is so much wind! I usually have a bit of a chill every day we come back even though the afternoons are usually sunny it is still around 18 degrees. Our place in the Dolomites has a bathtub (yay!) and a sauna and hot tub (for the building) so I am looking forward to that particularly if the temperatures will be like here (or cooler).

Anyway, we cycled out East to Juno Beach and decided to go on the organized tour of the two bunkers there and the beach. Juno beach center was actually funded by war veterans and wasn’t open until 2003. Sort of sad that our government hasn’t funded this project. Part of the vision was to have young Canadians come over for 6 month terms to provide tours. Our tour guide was a young guy (maybe 20-25) from Sudbury.

We visited the first bunker which was one of the earlier style bunkers the Germans had built. It was built out of bricks and cement blocks that had steel rebar reinforcements. It was built by the French actually, under forced labour, but they were smart! They brought “gifts” of liquor to the German’s overseeing the project to lessen the supervision. They then constructed the brick so the hollow part was facing out then hid the rebar in the sand. They would also pour salt or sugar into the walls so that the concrete wouldn’t dry properly. The made the walls of the bunker much weaker. Brilliant! The second bunker was built closer to the end of the war and was made out of pure concrete with 2 m thick walls. Our guide contrasted the differences: the first made from an offensive mindset, the second from a defensive mindset.

We walked out to the beach with our guide (and with 15 other Canadians and a few Brits) where he described the landing on Juno. 85% of the soldiers were Canadian with the other 15% being British. Juno is considered the 2nd bloodiest beach next to Omaha. It’s a little embarrassing I didn’t know that- I suppose because Omaha and Utah are so present in today’s movies. Of the first wave that went in, ~130 men, only 26 made it up the beach and survived D Day. Unfortunately, due to the conditions in the channel, only half of the tanks made it, and they were late. This left the soldiers sitting ducks on the beach. More than 45 000 Canadians were killed in WWII, they had a running scroll of the names, which would take 13.5 hrs to watch in it’s entirety.

We spent about 3 hours at Juno and headed South to visit a Canadian Cemetery. Of all the cemeteries we’ve seen, this one, I think understandably, got me to the most. I overheard a tour guide say to his group, “You’re home now. I am now your guest, on your soil”. Ironically, it was the most beautiful, well kept cemeteries we had seen. Every row had little flowers and plants in between each grave. There were these big, beautiful Maple trees. Each grave had the name, age, and either a cross, Star of David, or blank. Most has inscriptions from the family. All at once in a slurry of emotions, I was overwhelmed with gratitude, grief, and patriotism.

We had one last stop on the list of Canadian sites, The Ardenne Abbey. This was the of the execution of 20 Canadian soldiers under the command of Kurt Meyer, an SS officer leading a troop of Hitler Youth. They were interrogated, then either bludgeoned or shot in the head. There were over 150 soldiers who are believed to have been executed in different parts of the area. Meyer was tried in Canada as a war criminal for the blatant violation of the Geneva Convention. Initially he received the sentence of death penalty, but he appealed and it was reduced to life imprisonment. There was question as to how much an officer should be held accountable for the actions of his men. He served some time in Canada then was sent back to a prison in Germany where he was released only 10 years later. He died only a few years after that from a heart attack. I won’t begin to go into my feelings on this, I’m sure you can guess as I’m fairly clear on my viewpoint of what should happen to people like him; however, after some research, I discovered that he started in the Hitler Youth at age 14...one can only imagine what that would do to your mind..to an adolescent mind. His actions are inexcusable, but imagine the brainwashing.

Okay, so we ran into the same tour group now for the 3rd time at the Abbey! Blue Fox was the operator and he actually invited us to join them at a local cidery for a drink. So we did, why not. We mingled with these folks (who were 30+ years our senior) and shared our different generation perspectives. It was a cheerful way to the end the day- there is an immediate connection, and shared sense of pride of our heritage and what our country did for the world.

We grabbed a bottle of cider and headed back home (after stopping for baguette-apparently the 1st place Normandy winner of baguettes). Since it was on the way...we stopped at Creulett Castle, which was where Montgomery set up his CP. Also...Churchill visited him here so you know...necessary to stop! We couldn’t get in, but I took a few pictures. The ride home was hilly and windy, ahhh the wind, but totally worth it.

Tomorrow is our last full day in France! It has gone so quickly. We’re going to head to Sword beach to hit 5/5 then maybe go into Bayeux for a few cultural food experiences.

Xo

[coreytravelogue]

Nuremberg, Germany - September 14, 2019

Today is my last true day in Germany, well tomorrow is but by true day I mean day to experience Germany before I head to Amsterdam. Last day to experience true German hefes, German food, Germany everything. Tomorrow is basically one long train ride starting at 8:30am and ending at 5pm.

Going to have to figure out my breakfast or what or how I am going to eat exactly for those 9 hours. It will definitely be a day for me to catch up on movies I have left in my queue on iTunes for sure and that is a good thing, I need a movie day.

Nuremberg surprised me in a good way but honestly I feel like a dumbkoff for not realizing that Nuremberg is in Bravaria and with Oktoberfest being in full swing I should not have been surprised that lots of hefe beer was going to be around and celebrations abound. Like right now I am at a cat cafe that is vegan having the best vegan scrambled eggs I have ever had in my life as parades are running right in front of me.

I was hoping to check in right after I arrived in Nuremberg but the person who could have couldn’t till 2:30 so I spent my first 3 hours in Nuremberg getting lost which has become a common story anywhere but especially in Nuremberg. The old city feels like a labyrinth where the streets and how things roll with them make no sense. That I one thing I won’t miss about Europe is lack of consistency in streets but then these streets were made and evolved over generations before more logical street planning was done.

I just don’t like how street names change on a dime. It could go to Koning Straße for two blocks then suddenly be Lessinger Straße, no change of direction or anything. It gets ready disorienting for me which is why I love having a compass because when street names and directions change on a dime the only way you can figure out where you are going is by knowing where north, south, east and west is on a compass.

I found myself at the house at 2:30 and after some language confusion I checked in. After I did that I headed back into the downtown area.

Nuremberg feels smaller than Leipzig actually however it is a insanely beautiful city at least in terms of its historical architecture. As soon as you walk it’s almost like you are walking into an amalgamation of a different time, yes many things have been modernized but lots of the city itself still holds its looks from the early 1700 and 1800s.

Nuremberg doesn’t have as much going for it as I thought it did at least in terms of museums which I found to be pretty surprising given this city’s look but not every city can be full of museums. I was just expecting more on the Nuremberg trials and maybe for other things however I still found stuff to do or I just say I stumbled on something to do in Nuremberg the first night I was there. The craft brewery I wanted to see didn’t open till six so I had two hours to kill so as I was waiting for that to open I stumbled upon a beer garden!

This is when I had my dumbkoff moment. How far is Nuremberg from Munich, fuck Corey you are in Bravaria and it is Oktoberfest, duh! I am not going to lie, I was hoping for this trip to be my great beer tour where I would have great beer from three or four different countries and just love it all. Belgium issapointed me greatly, Luxembourg didn’t offer much and Germany outside of Düsseldorf who delivered the goods has been a mixed bag to just as much of a disspointment. Now here I am during the best time to have Hefeweizen in the area where Hefeweizens are made and known for. Nuremberg saved this trip for me in terms of touring for beer.

Normally when it comes to hefes I only really have one choice at a brewery and even then it is a witbier more often I than not (there is a difference, slight but still). Whether it is any good or not is usually a flip of the coin because most places focus their expertise on lagers, IPAs, pale ales and nearly anything else but hefes or wits. Yeah they will put something out in the summer because it’s a ‘summer’ beer but few really seem to want o rock them. On,y Strange Fellows, Brasneck and a new brewery named Sundown to me seem to really care to make a good hefe or wit.

If I go to the liquor store yes I got more options but they are often in bottles or cans and more often not they don’t taste anywhere close to how good I have had them in Germany. For instance in Canada Koning Ludwig Hefeweizens are pretty easy to get by the bottle and they taste meh to not great. I thought it was like that everywhere till my host Maria from Düsseldorf told me to try it where it came from. I had Koning Ludwig in Germany and it tasted exactly the way I hoped and wanted it to. I guess my home country don’t care for hefes but me but as I have said to another friend of mine, hefeweizens are to beer what power metal is to metal. Seemingly both an acquired but entirely sought out taste, hard to pull off, not many care to but both are done well or mastered in Germany.

So I had three different brewers there with their on hefe and dunkel. I tried one breweries hefe and dunkel and it was devine. I went to the second and by the time I did the hefe I realized I better start eating. Mainly because they are filling me with half litres a shot. I ordered my first steak of the year which I en joyed and then had a dunkel. I realized I needed more food if I wanted to try the third brewery. Long story short by the time I hit the third I was full of food and beer but no less shit faced. I decided to walk it off and I inevitably found the craft brewery that I wanted to go to in the first place had now opened so I went in and noticed they didn’t make any hefes (maybe it is just craft brewery thing to just not make hefes) but is till had a beer there. I am pretty good at knowing where my limit is when traveling, especially when traveling because I never want to be left to drunk to get back home in a foreign country. My limit is usually around 2 litres, more or less depending on how much I ate. By this point I now had 3.5 litres of beer in me, I was pretty close to shit faced and in my own head which is a very dangerous mine field to walk. That is when I experienced something that excited me but also depressed me.

I doubt any of you have played a Silent Hill but for me one of the coolest but also scariest parts of the game is when you go into the dark version of the world you are inhabiting. Normally you walk around and it is all fog with light and shadows. There is still danger but dealable. When you get into the dark version of your surroundings that is when shit can really hit the fan. You know you are there when your surroundings change. I had that moment on my first night.

The city had a histor look with food shops and everything everywhere, everything nice and pleasant. When I was trying to find my way home it had looked like it turned into one huge beer market labyrinth. I never got to really experience Oktoberfest five years ago, I spent most of it at the camp site because I failed to realize that most had to book their seats a year in advance which I didn’t so I spent most of my time at the campsite being desperate and drunk off of the camp’s beer because you were not allowed to bring any back yourself. Plus the whole thing was a utter tourist trap full of drunk Canadians, Americans and Australians. This was different, these were actual Germans celebrating actual Oktoberfest with cheaper and better beer. So many bright lights it was like a party I wanted to be at and enjoy but sadly if I had another beer I probably would have been found dead in the river the following morning especially as I was getting very depressed at this time.

I survived nonetheless and felt like shit the morning, not hung over because I ate a whole lot of food before hand but I hit a limit in every way. Yesterday I wanted to hang around long enough to see this party again but I didn’t find it and again I hit my 2 litres limit.

Today I will be hitting that limit again because it will be the last time I get to. I just had a very big breakfast, this is my last day to have fun on my trip and I plan on getting as much out of it as I can tonight. The next three days before I leave I feel will be one long marathon before I return back home and get back to work. My adventure of the year will be over and I am already thinking about next year’s of course. Shazbot nanu nanu

[remingtonjvrm246-blog]

The 3 Greatest Moments in paintball mask History

Doping in sports has a long history. The term "doping" has been suggested to result from many different places. In Southern Africa during the 18th century, an alcoholic drink known as "dop" was used as a stimulant in ceremonial dances. A heavy dipping sauce the Dutch called "doop" had become known in America as a mixture that triggered sedation, hallucinations, and misunderstandings. During the past due 1800's and into 1900, the term "dope" was known as a narcotic drug that could also be applied to racehorses to impact their performance.

Throughout antiquity, men have sought out ways to help their bodies work harder and last longer. During the 19th century, Doctor Albert Schweitzer observed that the folks of Gabon (on the traditional western coast of Central Africa) would eat certain leaves or root base that would help them work contentedly and vigorously all day without feeling tired, hungry, and thirsty.

Sportsmen have always found ways to improve their stamina and performance. During an endurance walking race in Britain, one of the participants named Abraham Wood stated in 1807 that he previously used opium to keep himself awake every day and night while contending. These types of endurance sports, such as walking races that stretched over 500 mls, became such popular spectator sports, that promoters were eager to exploit them. Similar events were then kept for cyclists with six-day races which soon spread across the Atlantic. With monetary prizes increasing as more crowds paid to view, cyclists were more motivated to stay awake longer to cover greater distances. This opened the door for all kinds of treatments and drugs to get to these athletes to enhance performance. But instead of assisting the rider, the drugs made them suffer hallucinations. It made them become temporarily crazy during the contest. Cocaine was even found in a few of these concoctions in hopes that a rider who got tired by a six-day race would be able to get their second wind.

Through the 1904 Summer time Olympics the utilization of strychnine was thought essential to survive demanding races. Even doctors at that time described how useful the utilization of the drugs was to sports athletes in long-distance races. Thomas J. Hicks, who won the Olympic marathon in 1904, was presented with an shot of strychnine and a glass of brandy during the competition. Although his health eventually recovered, through the competition he was referred to as being "between life and loss of life."

An amphetamine known as Benzedrine made its first appearance during the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Its street name was "swiftness." This amphetamine caused a deficiency in judgment and heightened risk-taking tendencies thought to be beneficial in sports activities. Although anabolic steroids were first discovered and synthesized in the 1930's, its use in sports activities didn't begin until 1954. The Russians used it on the weightlifters who obtained impressive results with more weight gain and strength. Soon steroid use would become widespread in Olympic athletes, soccer players, bodybuilders, and athletes from other sports as well.

The most blatant use of doping athletes, mostly against their will, was during the 1970's in East Germany. Before German reunification, the state key police known as the Stasi, supervised the systematic doping of East German sportsmen. At the time doping been around in other countries, but in East Germany, it was a state policy. Sports athletes as young as ten years old were given hormones without consider to the negative effects it could have on their developing bodies. Instructors and instructors often lied informing the athletes that the performance enhancing pills were only vitamins. Thousands of previous athletes experienced to live with the physical and mental scars from many years of drug abuse pressured to them by the state who believed that each gold medal was an ideological triumph.

Doping has been admittedly prevalent in every sports activities. Some have stated that since the avoidance of doping is impossible, perhaps it should be legalized. Even though the fight against drugs in sports activities is ongoing and the use of anabolic steroids is banned by all major sports organizations, sports athletes will continue steadily to look for ways to get that competitive advantage. To some athletes, risking their health and reputation is the price they are prepared to pay for winning.

The fun activity called wakeboarding is a popular water sport across the globe! When you do need the perfect wakeboard for gliding smoothly in the waters, you also must be wearing the right wakeboard vest or life coats as you call them before throwing yourself in water! If you are a beginner, why don't we let you know that learning this drinking water sport will be worthwhile. Wakeboarding is crazy!

There will vary types of apparel designed for wakeboarding including life jackets, men's and women's wetsuit jacket with front zip or a wakeboard vest that are available in different colors, sizes and shapes across clothing stores or on online shopping portals. Pick the one that suits you the most.

Aside from these basic things, there is much more to learn about wakeboarding specially when you are a beginner. We will share with you some useful tips, that you must keep in mind after wakeboarding, before and while. Let's go!

No real matter what water sport it is, you may fall even on your face not just once but multiple times. Wakeboarding is no exclusion. It is all a part of your learning process. Usually do not give up no real matter what! Listen to your instructor who be closely watching you while you are attempting to learn this new drinking water sport and making mistakes at the same time. Their words of advice can help you, and for that reason you must pay attention to them to learn where you are exactly going incorrect.

This is a mandatory boating safety rule. You have to wear a PFD or a personal floatation device before you go out for wakeboarding. Now wakeboard women, vests, life coats and men's wetsuit coat with front zip will vary designs of the required jackets that you must be wearing prior to you heading out to try this sport. It can save your valuable life from any sort of accident that may take place in the water.

That is one of the most basic things to do before you begin wakeboarding. Choose which feet you want to handle forward while wakeboarding in the waters. This is actually the same foot you should seemingly put forward, either to kick a ball, or if you are looking to regain balance.

Because you have to pull the rope at all times, wakeboarding tends to get harder on your hands. Pulling in the rope initially seems easy, but after some time, your arms start aching like hell. Nevertheless, you are going to be fine and you will get accustomed to it with regular practice. Nothing to worry!

Beginners should start with a shorter rope. Not merely can it make it easier for you to listen to your instructor's instructions, it can help you to operate quickly in paintball markers case you fall too. Ideally, beginners should use a rope that ranges from 30 to 50 ft.

One common mistake that a lot of beginners make is to pull on the rope. Let the boat draw you to your feet instead. Keep the arms straight, and look forward. Do not keep taking a look at your wakeboard bindings or you may fall eventually.

These are some typically common helpful tips for beginners of wakeboarding. Wish you found the article useful.

[adventuresinaustria]

Remainder of March Update feat. Trip to Berlin

April 11- Happy spring! I am so happy to be done with the brutal cold and snow of winter. It’s been a wonderful two weeks with this warm, sunny, spring weather. Clearly I have failed to keep up with my blog as regularly as I had intended but as I’ve said many times before, time is just slipping away from me! It has been an eventful few weeks that I will fill you in on here.

Quick note: We have 16 days left in Salzburg until our semester is officially completed! My heart aches every single time I think about leaving my home here in Salzburg. It’s amazing how accustomed to life here I have become and how quickly I’ve formed friendships with my classmates. My roommate Des and I have gotten in the habit of having weekly conversations about how devastating it’s going to feel to leave and say goodbye to everything and everyone here for the last time. The tears are already flowing! However, I have also been in contact with some of my close friends from home who cannot WAIT for my return to the States! They definitely make it a lot easier to leave Europe but again that reverse culture shock will for sure take some getting used to. I personally have grown and changed tremendously during my time here in Austria and the thought of returning to Milwaukee where all of my closest friends have been this whole time will be difficult. I have seen, learned, and experienced SO many things that my closest loved ones at home will never be able to fully understand. I can only hope that I stay in contact with my friends here in Salzburg so I can lean on them as we all return to our lives at home and figure out how to reestablish ourselves in the US culture. It will be so strange and heartbreaking to not have all 12 of my new friends here in Salzburg by my side everyday anymore. We have been through so much together, good and bad, and are really a family. Also, Des and I have talked about how much our advisors warned us about the initial culture shock we would experience when entering Europe but how they didn’t put too much emphasis on the reverse culture shock afterward. It’s something I really never thought about either until living here and pondering the thought of returning home at this point. Of course I have lived in the States my whole life and will eventually be able to learn the way of life again but I think in general the challenge of that is underestimated. I’m really going to enjoy the next 16 days here in Salzburg and hope for the best when I get home! 

On a happier note, here’s a little look at what I’ve been up to the past month... 

Week of March 18-24: 

This week began with a fun concert at our school’s coffee shop on Tuesday night. All around Salzburg there were five or so coffee shops that had live music so we naturally went to our school’s shop to listen to the band. There were people from the Austrian TV stations filming and the shop was just about packed! Salzburg College actually just opened their coffee shop this semester so we are incredibly lucky to be able to enjoy it. It is right next door to the college and is primarily for us students to eat lunch in, drink coffee/tea (free of cost), and do whatever else we please. It’s a super cute shop that I spend almost all of my time in when I’m not in class. 

The concert was a great way to publicize the shop since it is so new. There are quite a few Austrians who are strolling in and out everyday for a bakery treat or coffee which makes me believe that the shop is doing fairly well! 

Later this week, Friday morning, Des and I headed to Berlin for the weekend! Earlier this week we both decided we wanted to travel somewhere for the weekend and just booked a spontaneous last minute trip! Des has only seen Munich, Germany and really wanted to see more of the country so we figured Berlin would be a great destination. 

Berlin was absolutely amazing! As Des said, it would be as if San Francisco, New York, and Vienna had a baby haha. It is very trendy and modern like San Fran, hustle bustle and huge like New York, and historic with old buildings like Vienna. Berlin definitely gave us a feel of America with all of the fast food restaurants we know and love (Mc Donalds, KFC, subway, etc) and just how modern it is. It also has incredibly wide boulevards that make you feel like you're in Vegas or New York.

^This is the park Des and I took a nap in before our flight left on Sunday! 

At the same time though Berlin has so much history that reminds us we are in Europe. For instance, there is the Berlin Wall, Charlie Checkpoint, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and the Berliner Dom. The Berlin Wall is a site I have always wanted to visit in real life for as long as I can remember studying it in my many years of education. There are actually parts of it dispersed throughout the city that just constantly reminds you of how involved in the Cold War and WWII Berlin was. 

For the most part Des and I wandered aimlessly through the big city and stumbled across the main sites as we walked along. One of those sites was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe which we happened to find on our way to another site. It was essentially a huge square filled with hundreds of large metal blocks that were taller than we were. 

This was yet another reminder of how involved Berlin was during the war. Following the memorial we came across the Brandenburg Gate which is a monument established in the 18th century. This is one of the most well known and historical landmarks in Berlin that stands where the former city gate was and as such is a symbol of European unity and peace. 

The last major site we saw today is called Checkpoint Charlie. This is the most famous crossing point between East and West Germany during the Cold War. It was here that dozens of people attempted to cross the the Berlin wall to escape the communist East Berlin and enter the democratic West Germany. Unfortunately, all but a few were unsuccessful and shot by the border police as a result.

As you can see this is a popular tourist spot where many people go as far as dressing up as soldiers and taking photos.

Side note: The Mc Donalds building behind it is a good representation of the modern buildings seen all around Berlin.

This area you see above includes a museum that we did not go inside of, a piece of the wall shown in the back right corner, and a historical timeline of events through the cold war all along the walls.

Above is a description of the Berlin Wall and below is a visual image of the divided country of Germany during the Cold War.

After our day of site-seeing, we set out to the Berliner Dom that evening. This is the singlehandedly most breathtaking building I have ever stood inside of. It was finished in 1905 and is the location of many operas, performances, and of course weekly services. The first night we arrived in Berlin, Des and I walked in, looked up at the ceiling, and both of our jaws dropped. You can get a look here and what we saw but pictures will never do it justice. 

It was a rush of emotion honestly. The organ is just beautiful in addition to the intricate architecture and painting of the cathedral's interior structure. Our first visit to the cathedral was on Friday night when an orchestra happened to be rehearsing for an upcoming show and much to our surprise they had a performance the next evening! Des and I both looked at each other and decided it was a must. This was easily the best 24 Euro I have ever spent. 

The performance included a full choral orchestra with a few vocal soloists. It’s safe to say Des and I were the only two attendants without white hair lol but nonetheless, we closed our eyes and really soaked in the glorious sound that filled the dom. I had never attended an opera or music performance at all so this was a magical experience for myself especially. 

Solo pic of me by the river before heading into the opera :) 

Our flight on Sunday was in the evening so we made sure to visit the East Side Gallery which is a mile of the Berlin wall still intact that is now covered from end to end with beautiful paintings. Each segment of the wall has a different work of art on it that ranges anywhere from abstract paintings to meaningful art creations with images/messages about politics, equality, saving the earth, and so on. Here are just a few of the segments that we saw: 

Another thing I wanted to share about Berlin is the delicious German food we ate! (Images below) In the middle of March, cities all around Europe begin to open their Easter markets, which are equivalent to the popular Christmas markets in winter. Therefore, Des and i had the opportunity to browse around Berlin’s market and get some authentic German street food. Germany and Austria are both known for their bratwurst and potatoes, which is exactly what we ate! Kebaps are also a famous dish in Europe. These are pretty much sandwiches that resemble a Greek gyro as Americans know it. 

Above is the food we had to choose from to put into a big tortilla shell/bowl. Mine shown below has bratwurst and potatoes in it while my roommate got some veggies, chicken, and potatoes in hers. So yummy! 

Our other authentic meal were kebaps for lunch. These usually consist of meat, sauce, and whatever veggies you wish to have on it. Here mine has onion, tomato, and cucumbers. If you would’ve asked me to eat this back in the States three months ago I would only do it for pay haha. It’s incredible how much my food pallet has expanded since being abroad! 

That concludes week 9! 

Week 10 (March 25-31) 

Here we are already at the end of March! This week we had an excursion to the Salzburg Museum for my Art of Propaganda class which was very interesting. We’ve learned so much about Austria’s history and especially their role in the war but in this class we focus on the propaganda the Nazi’s used during WWII and even propaganda in our society today. Going to the museum was a great way to learn about the city of Salzburg’s role during WWII. The way the museum is decorated was really special because all along the walls they had the years written (1939-1945 aka the years of WWII) and what happened to Salzburg, Germany/Austria, and the globe as a whole during each year. You can see here how they really broke it down. 

In addition, something our tour guide told us that stuck with me was how the Nazi party used the roadways as a means of propaganda too. I was confused about how this could be but it turns out the Nazi’s used the construction of highways as a way to give the people hope. After the first world war Austria was in economic despair and suffering from massive unemployment but the construction of highways opens tremendous opportunity for jobs. If people were opposed to Hitler or the Nazi Party this very well could have changed their mind and resulted in them supporting the Nazi’s just because of this little bit of good they are bringing to Austria. Below is an actual piece of the highway they conserved for the museum. It used to have a swastika in the middle of it but that was removed once the war ended.

They also had crates that they used during the war to store precious items including alcohol underground.

One other piece of propaganda displayed in the museum is the Austrian flag with the Swastika on it. The Swastika as we all know is a powerful Nazi symbol so placing it on the flag was a huge form of propaganda. Furthermore, the original flag that had this symbol on it was preserved and taken to the museum. 

Once the Nazi’s seized Austria during the war they had complete control of not only the government but also of museums too. In doing so, they were able to decide what objects are put in the museum and what needs to be removed. They took advantage of the museum by only allowing pro-Nazi documents, items, etc in there to further gain support of their party. Eventually Salzburg Museum needed to be evacuated because during 1944 and 1945 the city of Salzburg was bombed a total of 15 times. Unfortunately in the process of three air raids in 1944 the museum took a great hit and its content suffered great damage. Because Salzburg was in ruins after the war, it wasn't until the 60′s  that they began reconstruction of the museum that we can still visit today. 

That same afternoon we had a walking tour around Salzburg in which our guide showed us some of the historic sites that were prominent to WWII. The first site we saw was the plaza that the famous book burning happened in. The book burning was another way of Nazi’s exerting their power in which they ordered any cultural Jewish books to be burned in flames. They only wanted people to read about the Aryan race and how to support the Nazi party. This was one of the many anti-semitic acts on behalf of the Nazi’s. 

Below is an image of the plaza, Residenzplatz, where the book burning took place in Salzburg.

Around the corner from this site is the building that was once the Nazi Headquarters during WWII: 

One other thing our guide showed us were the little plaques in the ground that are actually all over Salzburg. Each little square plaque has the name of a victim of Nazi brutality during the war and now that he pointed it out, I have noticed them more and more around the city ever since. It’s amazing to think how much history happened here in the streets we walk on everyday to school, etc, less than 100 years ago. 

It was quite a history heavy week in terms of all the tours but a very educational one to say the least! 

Check out my next post for an April update... auf wiedersehen! 

[haggertyadventuretime]

Laos, continued.

This is a long one!

Still in Laos!

Internet connections in this country are basically nonexistent, it’s been hard to find a connection strong and long enough to post anything on here/Facebook/instagram!

We stayed in Muong Ngoi for two nights, and it rained basically the whole time. There are no paved roads which meant it got very muddy very fast and we decided not to do any trekking since the temperature was much lower than expected and we hadn’t packed anything warm enough to deal with it... We spent most of our time cuddled under blankets those two days!

We did end up running into the most unpleasant traveler, which is honestly surprising given how nice and relaxed most people are around here, Lao and tourist alike. I’m going to call him the Mad Scotsman, because this dude had a chip on his shoulder about pretty much everything. He became famous in our small village pretty quickly, as he generally just invites himself to your table and starts spewing insults about your heritage/country/accent whatever he can learn about you but tries to keep you in the conversation. A very nice German man whom we befriended, Christian, had taken the time to get to know him and apparently the Mad Scotsman had been fighting in east Ukraine? Unsure how or why, also he was super young and loud, which to me screams the opposite of a mercenary. We luckily only had to talk to him twice, but got to talk to Christian much more!

We decided to skip the long boat journey and instead take the one hour boat ride back to Nong Khiaw and a bus to Udoumxai, then the next morning a bus to Luang Namtha. Udoumxai is a Chinese trading town, and we were hoping for some good dim sum and markets but didn’t really find anything except a live music bar with a larger-than-life Spider Man hanging from the ceiling.

Luang Namtha was a very nice town! It’s right near a large jungle preserve with many hill tribes, and once again, ethnic minorities. We were touted once again by women with their handicrafts, although these ladies could learn a thing or two from the tribes in Sa Pa, because they weren’t organized or aggressive at all.

We stayed in Luang Namtha for two nights. On our first night, as we were eating at the night market, who walks in but Christian! Yay! He had come a different way from Moung Ngoi. We sampled the local Lao Lao whiskey at $0.25/shot and had some laughs about the Mad Scott.

The next day was beautiful, so we rented a couple of (very uncomfortable) mountain bikes and had a ride around the area. We ran into Christian, who impressed us with his biking ability given that the roads were very rocky (we were walking our mountain bikes), and here comes Christian, 61, on a road cruiser with a basket on the front, just slowly pedaling uphill with a giant smile on his face. We said hello and continued our separate ways, this time me and Brendan on the bikes. The sun came out after a while on the paved roads, and the views of mountains behind rice paddies full of water buffalo were quite amazing. We also found a beer garden in the middle of nowhere that was BLASTING music but had no one in it, just two 15 year old girls in the DJ booth. We had a beer (which was very confusing to them) and continued through rice paddies and dirt roads to see some small villages, then looped back after a few hours. That night we had one last drink with Christian, who was moving on to Thailand the next day, and we exchanged emails so that the next time I’m in Germany I could hit him up. He lives in the Rhinegau, an area famous for Rieslings!

The next day we started a two day, one night trekking tour through jungles to a remote hill tribe village. The trekking was the hardest hike I have ever done. On the first day, we had some bad luck with mud, Since it had rained a few days before and the jungle retains its wetness. We were sometimes going down areas so steep and so muddy that I would straight up just sit down and slide on the mud. Other areas were going along slippery cliffs about two feet across with nothing but thorny bushes to catch yourself on if you slipped! I was having issues with my depth perception and elephant-like grace, and our wonderful guide-in-training made me a very sturdy walking stick which helped a lot. It was very beautiful in the jungle, but our guide walked very fast and Brendan and I struggled to keep up with the group, so we generally watched our feet more than we did the surroundings. We had lunch on the floor of the jungle, eating with our hands off banana leaves.

We finally arrived in the village, which is a Kmhmu tribe, about 250 people. The guide had brought a bag of knit children’s wool clothing and hats that a couple from New Zealand had made and donated to the village, and he started sorting and handing it all out. It was pretty cool watching the whole village crowd around with the kids to get their size, and they immediately put the new clothes on and started strutting their stuff. I had the impression that these people don’t have more than one or two changes of clothing each, so getting warm clothes is a big deal for them with the cold winter approaching. Like many remote places in Laos, they only just got access to running water through a humanitarian aid project from Germany, and electricity is powered by generators for only a few hours a day. No water heaters, no insulation, nothing but a fire outside and blankets to keep you warm.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get a whole lot of interaction with the villagers, we ate in the homestay separately from everyone else, but with the guides and the couple whose house we were sleeping in. Turns out the husband is actually the chief of the village! He brought us a bag of Lao Lao whiskey, poured it into an empty bottle of beer, and started rounds of shots for everyone. Not surprisingly, Brendan and I held our liquor much better than the rest. They may be better hikers, but we know how to party!

The next morning before the hike back to Luang Namtha, we visited the village’s school. Brendan and I had planned ahead and had brought pens and pencils for the kids, just enough it turns out! It felt nice handing them out to the kids, I only wish we had brought more. We visited two other villages, another Kmhmu tribe as well as another whose name I forget, but the third village was even poorer and the villagers wore their traditional costumes. We watched as the women spun cotton and potato fibers into thread, then had one very, very steep climb to get home. It was not as technically difficult as the day before in terms of obstacles, just hours of climbing up mountains, and then down.

When we got back, and after thoroughly showering and finding a place that does “fast laundry” (first place I’ve seen a dryer in SE Asia!), Brendan took a nap for the rest of the day and night, and I went to a local herbal sauna and massage place. It was pretty cool to enjoy such a cultural experience and being the only foreigner. My masseuse was very good, Lao massage is Thai influenced and involves twisting your body into pretty active positions, fully clothed, and in the middle of the rickety shack where people are coming and going, in and out of the sauna and to and from the woman’s house. At one point, she was using two hands and a foot to massage me, while quoting a price to a local for the sauna, and also directing her seven year old to remove his four year old brother from the premises. Not atmospheric in the way I’m used to a massage, but she really made my muscles relax, and for $4.50 for a 45 minute massage and unlimited herbal sauna after, you really can’t beat it.

Next, we travelled to Huayxai, which is across the Mekong River from the Thailand border. We could see the sun set over the Thai mountains! This is also the city that The Gibbon Experience is based out of. We signed up for the three day, two night “Classic Experience,” a big splurge that we had been looking forward to for a while! I was definitely a little scared: I am afraid of heights, and I’ve never gone on a zip line before, and this place boasts the tallest tree houses in the world that you sleep in, and some of the longest and tallest zip lines as well.

I ended up really enjoying it! It involved more jungle trekking, but not nearly as difficult as the previous trekking experience in Luang Namtha. We also had the luxury of zip lining any downhill area, basically! You really feel line you’re flying, and seeing the jungle canopy from above was very cool.

We shared a tree house with a family of four from Montreal, two parents and their nine and seven year olds. They are on a six month trip, which Brendan and I wished them luck on. Currently, they are a month in, having been to Myanmar, and some of Thailand, KL and Shanghai. The kids had a great time, and our guide was excellent with them. Sometimes, the zip lines were too long for the kids to go alone, so the guides would zip with them, which they loved. Sometimes the zip lines were too long even for us adults to get through, so you would have to grab the line once you’ve slowed down and, while upside down, use your hands and feet to climb the rest of the way! That was quite the workout!

We never saw any wildlife save for birds and squirrels, probably partially due to the fact that we were staying with a seven year old boy. That was a bit of a shame, but apparently it’s pretty rare to see the gibbons. One group saw them from far away in their tree house, and the little girl in our tree house may have seen one in the early morning as she was using the bathroom. There are no walls or windows in the tree houses, just railings and the occasional privacy curtain, so it’s quite the panorama of jungle, even if you’re taking a shower!

We got back, quite gratified and happy as well as pretty done with jungle trekking. Been there, done that. We took a two day slow boat from Huayxai to Luang Prabang with an overnight stopover in Pakbeng. This is the point in our journey when we started being two of many tourists, which I had not missed. Unfortunately, tourism has started lots of touts in Pakbeng, as it lies in the “golden triangle” for both tourists and drugs. Within seconds of getting off the boat, we were both propositioned for marijuana and opium, sometimes by children! Not the first time we have been propositioned for either in our trip thus far, but definitely the youngest so far. Obviously the answer was no.

The trips on the boats both days were much more comfortable than we had expected. The seats were basically ripped out of minivans and just bolted to pieces of wood that kept them somewhat upright on the floor of the boat, but not stable at all. We brought snacks and beer, and there was a snack and beer bar on the boat (at very inflated prices) as well as a toilet. The views from the Mekong were absolutely stunning, with dense jungle and the occasional tiny village. Like any public transportation in Laos, there were many unscheduled pickups and drop offs along the way, including picking up and dropping off people in Thailand! On the second day, there were some well organized school children ready for our boat to pull over with bracelets and purses to sell. They waded into the water, waist deep for them, and touted their goods for the three minutes it took to unload our cargo at that stop. Kind of funny that the girls are working he whole time, while on the other side of the pier, the boys of the same age are playing games on a canoe and swimming.

Yesterday, the sixth, we arrived back in Luang Prabang. This morning, we hopped on a bus for a six to seven hour scenic ride to Vang Vieng, a scenic river town known for its raucous partying and tubing among backpackers. Luckily the government stepped in a few years ago to ease the craziness... if you google Vang Vieng you can very easily find out what I’m talking about. We are going for tubing (sans death swings and booze buckets) and fabulous views. The bus we are on right now is full of very annoying middle aged tourists who spent a lot of time complaining about their seats, when this is the most comfortable bus we have been on yet. It even has seat belts! Nothing to clip them into, but it’s the thought that counts, hahaha.

Actually, the views from the bus were spectacular, despite the constant twisting and turning of the precarious roads. The mountains changed from rolling hills to craggy limestone, almost like Ha Long Bay without all the water! Now we have made it to Vang Vieng and are enjoying some creature comforts for the evening, tomorrow we will be enjoying the out of doors in the hot weather!

[benrleeusa]

[David Kopel] Mass shootings in gun-free nations

Stephen Willeford, center, listens during a prayer vigil on Wednesday in Floresville, Tex., for the victims of the Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church shooting. (David J. Phillip/Associated Press)

The global history of mass shootings demonstrates that the vast majority of these crimes are perpetrated in places where citizen firearms ownership is close to nil. While people can argue about cause and effect, the facts are indisputable.

This might seem surprising to people who read a recent article in the New York Times claiming that the mass shootings in the United States are a direct consequence of the high density of gun ownership in the country. But the article is analytically flawed, as Robert VerBruggen detailed for National Review Online. For example, the Times article is based on a study by a professor who refuses to allow skeptics to see his data or his methodology. But let’s hypothesize that the assertions by the professor are correct. It is still true that mass shooting fatalities are heavily concentrated in areas where citizen firearms possession is prohibited.

Consider, for example, some of the deadliest mass shootings of the 20th century. As soon as the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union began on June 22, 1941, special SS units called Einsatzgruppen were deployed for mass killings. All the Jews or Gypsies (also known as Roma) in a village would be assembled and marched out of town. Then they would all be shot at once. (Yehuda Bauer, “Jewish Resistance in the Ukraine and Belarus during the Holocaust,” in Jewish Resistance Against the Nazis, Patrick Henry ed. [D. C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2014], pp. 485-93.)

Within a year, the 3,000 Einsatzgruppen, aided by several thousand helpers from the German police and military, had murdered about 1 million people, concentrating on small towns in formerly Soviet territory. (Hillary Earl, The Nuremberg SS-Einsatzgruppen Trial, 1945–1958 [Cambridge, U. K.: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 2009], pp. 4–8; Reuben Ainsztein, Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Eastern Europe [London: Elek Books, 1974], pp. 222–25.) Einsatzgruppen mass shootings took place not only in today’s Russia but also in nations that the Soviet Communists had taken over, and which were then over-run by the Nazis: eastern Poland (taken by Stalin pursuant to the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact), Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Because of psychological damage to the Einsatzgruppen, the Nazis attempted to replace mass shootings with mobile gas vans. But these did not work out well, partly because herding people into the gas vans required even closer contact with the victims than did mass shooting. (Earl, p. 7). Therefore, the Nazis invented extermination camps with huge gas chambers, which were more efficient at mass killing, and which created a larger physical (and, consequently, psychological) distance between the murderers and their victims.

In pre-WWII Poland and in the Soviet Union, “no firearm, not even a shotgun,” could be lawfully possessed without a government permit. For most people, “such permits were impossible to obtain.” (Ainsztein, p. 304; see also Chaika Grossman, The Underground Army: Fighters of Bialystok Ghetto, trans. Schmuel Beeri [N.Y.: Holocaust Library, 1987; first pub. in Israel 1965], p. 3.) “Not to allow the peasants to have arms” had been the policy “from time immemorial.” (Ainsztein, p. 304.) In this regard, Lenin and Stalin carried on the Russian czarist tradition, as they did in many other ways. (See generally Eugene Lyons, Stalin: Czar of All the Russias [Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1940]; Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar [N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004].)

In Poland, the main way that firearms got into citizens’ hands was peasant scavenging of rifles that had been left behind from the battles of World War I (1914-1918) and the Russo-Polish War (1919-1920). Usually the rifle barrels would be sawed short, for concealment. (Ainsztein, p. 304.) But thanks to the 1939 Hitler-Stalin Pact, the Soviet Union invaded and conquered the eastern third of Poland at the beginning of World War II. The Soviet secret police, the NKVD, “took great care to disarm the local population, and was very successful.” (Ibid.)

The one big chance to acquire arms was in the chaos immediately after June 22, 1941. In those first weeks, the Soviet army reeled in retreat, leaving large quantities of weapons behind. But the abandoned arms tended to be in rural areas (where Polish peasants picked up many), whereas most Jews lived in cities or towns. (Ibid.)

During the chaotic early weeks on the Eastern Front, the Nazis successfully deterred most Jews from attempting to scavenge arms. As in every nation conquered by the Third Reich, being caught with a firearm meant instant death for oneself and one’s family, and perhaps even for others, in reprisal. This was especially so for Jews. Disarmed, the Jews and Roma were soon destroyed.

Victims of a mass shooting perpetrated by organized government are just as dead as victims of a mass shooting perpetrated by a lone nut. Adopt the broadest definition of “mass shooting” that you want (e.g., three victims wounded, one killed). Add up all the mass shooting deaths from lunatics, organized crime, jihadist cells and ordinary criminals. The global, historical total of mass shooting deaths will be gruesome, and it will also be small compared to the total of mass shooting deaths perpetrated by criminal governments — including Fascists, Communists and non-ideological tyrants.

University of Hawaii political science professor R.J. Rummel compiled demographic data regarding genocide. He estimated the total number of victims of mass murders by governments from 1901 to 1990 to be 169,198,000. (Rudolph J. Rummel, Death by Government [Piscataway, N.J.: Transaction Pub., 2d ed. 2000].) This figure does not include deaths from wars; it includes only deliberate mass murder of civilian populations.

Because Rummel was only studying situations in which governments were engaged in major efforts to exterminate a large number of people, his 169 million victims figure does not include smaller-scale mass murders, including mass shootings. For example, if government agents shoot up a political rally, or attack an opposition newspaper, killing dozens of people, those deaths would not be included in Rummel’s figures.

There are lots of means to perpetrate mass murder: with poison gas, with bombs, by running people over with trucks, working them to death in slave labor camps, or even by hacking them with machetes, as in Rwanda. However, mass shootings have been among the most common methods of mass murder around the world for more than a century. Even when victims are killed by other means, such as deliberate starvation or gas chambers, a government monopoly of arms is essential for governments being able to prevent the victims from resisting.

The illegitimate “governments” that perpetrate mass shootings or other forms of mass murder have worked assiduously to ensure that their intended victims are disarmed. This was true in Turkish Armenia in World War I;  in Darfur, Sudan;  in Indonesia’s ethnic cleansing of East Timor; in Bosnia; in Kenya and Uganda; in Ethiopia against the Anuak; and in many other places.

Gun prohibition advocates insist that armed self-defense could not possibly make a difference when governments perpetrate mass shootings or other forms of mass murder. But this is true only for strawman scenarios. Of course the Jews in Nazi Germany could not have overthrown Hitler by themselves. Nor could the Jewish or Roma peasants in eastern Poland have single-handedly driven the Wehrmacht back to Germany. But at the least, armed resisters can fight back and kill some of the perpetrators. If every one of the 1 million Jews and Roma who were murdered by the Einsatzgruppen had possessed a good rifle, then it would not have been so simple for a million people to be  slaughtered by a few thousand. Plenty of Einsatzgruppen would have been shot and that would at least have slowed down the pace of murders, providing more time for some potential victims to escape, and making it harder for Hitler’s regime to recruit replacements.

Notwithstanding the assertions of anti-gun lobbyists that victim resistance is futile, the governments that perpetrate mass murders do fear armed citizens. That is why rigorous disarmament of the victims almost always precedes the killings.

Besides denying the universal human right that is recognized by the U.S. Second Amendment, the perpetrators also deny the universal human right recognized by the First Amendment: the exchange of information. It was not until early 1942 that Eastern European Jews began to realize that when Nazis moved people out of a city or town, the purpose was not deportation for slave labor, but rather extermination. The news of the Nazis’ actual intentions was first spread by a Jan. 1, 1942, manifesto written by Abba Kovner, a young poet in Vilnius, Lithuania. Kovner’s words were smuggled from ghetto to ghetto:

“Let us not go to slaughter like sheep! Jewish youth, do not trust the deceivers. . . . Hitler has invented a system for the destruction of all the Jews on Europe….It is true that we are weak and we have nobody to help us. But our only dignified answer to the enemy must be resistance! Brothers, it is better to die like free fighters than to live by the murderer’s grace. Resist until your last breath!”

(Ainsztein, p. 499.)

“It can’t happen here,” some people say about the United States. But during the 1930s, there were lots of American supporters of Fascism and Communism. Today, there are far too many people on the political far left and far right who are openly hostile to civil liberty and to the Constitution. They palpably yearn to be ruled by a strongman. On nearly every college campus, many professors indoctrinate students in Marxist thinking, which in practical application is little different from Hitlerite thinking. As detailed by the Canary Mission, Jew-hating student “leaders” are common on American college campuses; like their brownshirt ancestors of the 1920s in Germany, they use violence and intimidation to suppress speech in favor of Jewish resistance to exterminationists, which today include organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

Germany in 1900 was one of the most tolerant places in the world for Jews; in any country, things can change a lot in a few decades.

Contrary to the claims of the gun prohibition lobbies, sensible policies to minimize mass shootings are not simply a matter of confiscating guns from law-abiding citizens. The better approach was adopted by the United States as World War II loomed in Europe. First, laws should attempt to prevent firearms acquisition by individuals who have proven they are particularly likely to use firearms offensively. The first broad federal law to do so was the Federal Firearms Act of 1938, which, among other things, prohibited firearms sales to felons. This was later strengthened by the Gun Control Act of 1968. Today, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System works towards the same objective.

Second a policy for reducing the death toll of mass shootings also means ensuring that lawful defenders have the means to resist. This means abolishing laws that forbid licensed, trained adults to carry defensive handguns in certain locations, such as churches. It means not depriving good citizens of effective arms of resistance — such as Stephen Willeford’sAR-15 rifle that instantly ended the killing spree in Sutherland Springs, Tex., on Nov. 5.

Most of all, it means ensuring that our nation can never be turned into a “gun-free zone,” in which a rogue government could perpetrate mass shootings without resistance. Thus, after Congress passed the Federal Firearms Act of 1938, it passed the Property Requisition of Act of 1941. This was the first of several federal statutes to outlaw federal gun registration and gun confiscation. The act was informed by what had already taken place in Europe, where Hitler and Stalin used registration lists to confiscate guns, create gun-free zones, and then perpetrate mass shootings. Registration, confiscation, extermination.

Humane and sensible firearms policy aims to deter illegitimate, offensive uses of firearms, and to foster legitimate, defensive uses. Unreasonable and unfair policy disarms everyone except the government and its favored elites. Not every nation that adopts the latter policy ends up with genocide. Yet the historical record is clear that mass disarmament of citizens can be the gateway to millions of deaths by mass shooting.

Some of this essay is based on Kopel’s book “The Morality of Self-Defense and Military Action: The Judeo-Christian Perspective” (Praeger 2017).

[nancyedimick]

Mass shootings in gun-free nations

Stephen Willeford, center, listens during a prayer vigil on Wednesday in Floresville, Tex., for the victims of the Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church shooting. (David J. Phillip/Associated Press)

The global history of mass shootings demonstrates that the vast majority of these crimes are perpetrated in places where citizen firearms ownership is close to nil. While people can argue about cause and effect, the facts are indisputable.

This might seem surprising to people who read a recent article in the New York Times claiming that the mass shootings in the United States are a direct consequence of the high density of gun ownership in the country. But the article is analytically flawed, as Robert VerBruggen detailed for National Review Online. For example, the Times article is based on a study by a professor who refuses to allow skeptics to see his data or his methodology. But let’s hypothesize that the assertions by the professor are correct. It is still true that mass shooting fatalities are heavily concentrated in areas where citizen firearms possession is prohibited.

Consider, for example, some of the deadliest mass shootings of the 20th century. As soon as the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union began on June 22, 1941, special SS units called Einsatzgruppen were deployed for mass killings. All the Jews or Gypsies (also known as Roma) in a village would be assembled and marched out of town. Then they would all be shot at once. (Yehuda Bauer, “Jewish Resistance in the Ukraine and Belarus during the Holocaust,” in Jewish Resistance Against the Nazis, Patrick Henry ed. [D. C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2014], pp. 485-93.)

Within a year, the 3,000 Einsatzgruppen, aided by several thousand helpers from the German police and military, had murdered about 1 million people, concentrating on small towns in formerly Soviet territory. (Hillary Earl, The Nuremberg SS-Einsatzgruppen Trial, 1945–1958 [Cambridge, U. K.: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 2009], pp. 4–8; Reuben Ainsztein, Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Eastern Europe [London: Elek Books, 1974], pp. 222–25.) Einsatzgruppen mass shootings took place not only in today’s Russia but also in nations that the Soviet Communists had taken over, and which were then over-run by the Nazis: eastern Poland (taken by Stalin pursuant to the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact), Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Because of psychological damage to the Einsatzgruppen, the Nazis attempted to replace mass shootings with mobile gas vans. But these did not work out well, partly because herding people into the gas vans required even closer contact with the victims than did mass shooting. (Earl, p. 7). Therefore, the Nazis invented extermination camps with huge gas chambers, which were more efficient at mass killing, and which created a larger physical (and, consequently, psychological) distance between the murderers and their victims.

In pre-WWII Poland and in the Soviet Union, “no firearm, not even a shotgun,” could be lawfully possessed without a government permit. For most people, “such permits were impossible to obtain.” (Ainsztein, p. 304; see also Chaika Grossman, The Underground Army: Fighters of Bialystok Ghetto, trans. Schmuel Beeri [N.Y.: Holocaust Library, 1987; first pub. in Israel 1965], p. 3.) “Not to allow the peasants to have arms” had been the policy “from time immemorial.” (Ainsztein, p. 304.) In this regard, Lenin and Stalin carried on the Russian czarist tradition, as they did in many other ways. (See generally Eugene Lyons, Stalin: Czar of All the Russias [Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1940]; Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar [N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004].)

In Poland, the main way that firearms got into citizens’ hands was peasant scavenging of rifles that had been left behind from the battles of World War I (1914-1918) and the Russo-Polish War (1919-1920). Usually the rifle barrels would be sawed short, for concealment. (Ainsztein, p. 304.) But thanks to the 1939 Hitler-Stalin Pact, the Soviet Union invaded and conquered the eastern third of Poland at the beginning of World War II. The Soviet secret police, the NKVD, “took great care to disarm the local population, and was very successful.” (Ibid.)

The one big chance to acquire arms was in the chaos immediately after June 22, 1941. In those first weeks, the Soviet army reeled in retreat, leaving large quantities of weapons behind. But the abandoned arms tended to be in rural areas (where Polish peasants picked up many), whereas most Jews lived in cities or towns. (Ibid.)

During the chaotic early weeks on the Eastern Front, the Nazis successfully deterred most Jews from attempting to scavenge arms. As in every nation conquered by the Third Reich, being caught with a firearm meant instant death for oneself and one’s family, and perhaps even for others, in reprisal. This was especially so for Jews. Disarmed, the Jews and Roma were soon destroyed.

Victims of a mass shooting perpetrated by organized government are just as dead as victims of a mass shooting perpetrated by a lone nut. Adopt the broadest definition of “mass shooting” that you want (e.g., three victims wounded, one killed). Add up all the mass shooting deaths from lunatics, organized crime, jihadist cells and ordinary criminals. The global, historical total of mass shooting deaths will be gruesome, and it will also be small compared to the total of mass shooting deaths perpetrated by criminal governments — including Fascists, Communists and non-ideological tyrants.

University of Hawaii political science professor R.J. Rummel compiled demographic data regarding genocide. He estimated the total number of victims of mass murders by governments from 1901 to 1990 to be 169,198,000. (Rudolph J. Rummel, Death by Government [Piscataway, N.J.: Transaction Pub., 2d ed. 2000].) This figure does not include deaths from wars; it includes only deliberate mass murder of civilian populations.

Because Rummel was only studying situations in which governments were engaged in major efforts to exterminate a large number of people, his 169 million victims figure does not include smaller-scale mass murders, including mass shootings. For example, if government agents shoot up a political rally, or attack an opposition newspaper, killing dozens of people, those deaths would not be included in Rummel’s figures.

There are lots of means to perpetrate mass murder: with poison gas, with bombs, by running people over with trucks, working them to death in slave labor camps, or even by hacking them with machetes, as in Rwanda. However, mass shootings have been among the most common methods of mass murder around the world for more than a century. Even when victims are killed by other means, such as deliberate starvation or gas chambers, a government monopoly of arms is essential for governments being able to prevent the victims from resisting.

The illegitimate “governments” that perpetrate mass shootings or other forms of mass murder have worked assiduously to ensure that their intended victims are disarmed. This was true in Turkish Armenia in World War I;  in Darfur, Sudan;  in Indonesia’s ethnic cleansing of East Timor; in Bosnia; in Kenya and Uganda; in Ethiopia against the Anuak; and in many other places.

Gun prohibition advocates insist that armed self-defense could not possibly make a difference when governments perpetrate mass shootings or other forms of mass murder. But this is true only for strawman scenarios. Of course the Jews in Nazi Germany could not have overthrown Hitler by themselves. Nor could the Jewish or Roma peasants in eastern Poland have single-handedly driven the Wehrmacht back to Germany. But at the least, armed resisters can fight back and kill some of the perpetrators. If every one of the 1 million Jews and Roma who were murdered by the Einsatzgruppen had possessed a good rifle, then it would not have been so simple for a million people to be  slaughtered by a few thousand. Plenty of Einsatzgruppen would have been shot and that would at least have slowed down the pace of murders, providing more time for some potential victims to escape, and making it harder for Hitler’s regime to recruit replacements.

Notwithstanding the assertions of anti-gun lobbyists that victim resistance is futile, the governments that perpetrate mass murders do fear armed citizens. That is why rigorous disarmament of the victims almost always precedes the killings.

Besides denying the universal human right that is recognized by the U.S. Second Amendment, the perpetrators also deny the universal human right recognized by the First Amendment: the exchange of information. It was not until early 1942 that Eastern European Jews began to realize that when Nazis moved people out of a city or town, the purpose was not deportation for slave labor, but rather extermination. The news of the Nazis’ actual intentions was first spread by a Jan. 1, 1942, manifesto written by Abba Kovner, a young poet in Vilnius, Lithuania. Kovner’s words were smuggled from ghetto to ghetto:

“Let us not go to slaughter like sheep! Jewish youth, do not trust the deceivers… . Hitler has invented a system for the destruction of all the Jews on Europe….It is true that we are weak and we have nobody to help us. But our only dignified answer to the enemy must be resistance! Brothers, it is better to die like free fighters than to live by the murderer’s grace. Resist until your last breath!”

(Ainsztein, p. 499.)

“It can’t happen here,” some people say about the United States. But during the 1930s, there were lots of American supporters of Fascism and Communism. Today, there are far too many people on the political far left and far right who are openly hostile to civil liberty and to the Constitution. They palpably yearn to be ruled by a strongman. On nearly every college campus, many professors indoctrinate students in Marxist thinking, which in practical application is little different from Hitlerite thinking. As detailed by the Canary Mission, Jew-hating student “leaders” are common on American college campuses; like their brownshirt ancestors of the 1920s in Germany, they use violence and intimidation to suppress speech in favor of Jewish resistance to exterminationists, which today include organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

Germany in 1900 was one of the most tolerant places in the world for Jews; in any country, things can change a lot in a few decades.

Contrary to the claims of the gun prohibition lobbies, sensible policies to minimize mass shootings are not simply a matter of confiscating guns from law-abiding citizens. The better approach was adopted by the United States as World War II loomed in Europe. First, laws should attempt to prevent firearms acquisition by individuals who have proven they are particularly likely to use firearms offensively. The first broad federal law to do so was the Federal Firearms Act of 1938, which, among other things, prohibited firearms sales to felons. This was later strengthened by the Gun Control Act of 1968. Today, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System works towards the same objective.

Second a policy for reducing the death toll of mass shootings also means ensuring that lawful defenders have the means to resist. This means abolishing laws that forbid licensed, trained adults to carry defensive handguns in certain locations, such as churches. It means not depriving good citizens of effective arms of resistance — such as Stephen Willeford’sAR-15 rifle that instantly ended the killing spree in Sutherland Springs, Tex., on Nov. 5.

Most of all, it means ensuring that our nation can never be turned into a “gun-free zone,” in which a rogue government could perpetrate mass shootings without resistance. Thus, after Congress passed the Federal Firearms Act of 1938, it passed the Property Requisition of Act of 1941. This was the first of several federal statutes to outlaw federal gun registration and gun confiscation. The act was informed by what had already taken place in Europe, where Hitler and Stalin used registration lists to confiscate guns, create gun-free zones, and then perpetrate mass shootings. Registration, confiscation, extermination.

Humane and sensible firearms policy aims to deter illegitimate, offensive uses of firearms, and to foster legitimate, defensive uses. Unreasonable and unfair policy disarms everyone except the government and its favored elites. Not every nation that adopts the latter policy ends up with genocide. Yet the historical record is clear that mass disarmament of citizens can be the gateway to millions of deaths by mass shooting.

Some of this essay is based on Kopel’s book “The Morality of Self-Defense and Military Action: The Judeo-Christian Perspective” (Praeger 2017).

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/11/09/mass-shootings-in-gun-free-nations/

[wolfandpravato]

Mass shootings in gun-free nations

Stephen Willeford, center, listens during a prayer vigil on Wednesday in Floresville, Tex., for the victims of the Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church shooting. (David J. Phillip/Associated Press)

The global history of mass shootings demonstrates that the vast majority of these crimes are perpetrated in places where citizen firearms ownership is close to nil. While people can argue about cause and effect, the facts are indisputable.

This might seem surprising to people who read a recent article in the New York Times claiming that the mass shootings in the United States are a direct consequence of the high density of gun ownership in the country. But the article is analytically flawed, as Robert VerBruggen detailed for National Review Online. For example, the Times article is based on a study by a professor who refuses to allow skeptics to see his data or his methodology. But let’s hypothesize that the assertions by the professor are correct. It is still true that mass shooting fatalities are heavily concentrated in areas where citizen firearms possession is prohibited.

Consider, for example, some of the deadliest mass shootings of the 20th century. As soon as the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union began on June 22, 1941, special SS units called Einsatzgruppen were deployed for mass killings. All the Jews or Gypsies (also known as Roma) in a village would be assembled and marched out of town. Then they would all be shot at once. (Yehuda Bauer, “Jewish Resistance in the Ukraine and Belarus during the Holocaust,” in Jewish Resistance Against the Nazis, Patrick Henry ed. [D. C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2014], pp. 485-93.)

Within a year, the 3,000 Einsatzgruppen, aided by several thousand helpers from the German police and military, had murdered about 1 million people, concentrating on small towns in formerly Soviet territory. (Hillary Earl, The Nuremberg SS-Einsatzgruppen Trial, 1945–1958 [Cambridge, U. K.: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 2009], pp. 4–8; Reuben Ainsztein, Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Eastern Europe [London: Elek Books, 1974], pp. 222–25.) Einsatzgruppen mass shootings took place not only in today’s Russia but also in nations that the Soviet Communists had taken over, and which were then over-run by the Nazis: eastern Poland (taken by Stalin pursuant to the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact), Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Because of psychological damage to the Einsatzgruppen, the Nazis attempted to replace mass shootings with mobile gas vans. But these did not work out well, partly because herding people into the gas vans required even closer contact with the victims than did mass shooting. (Earl, p. 7). Therefore, the Nazis invented extermination camps with huge gas chambers, which were more efficient at mass killing, and which created a larger physical (and, consequently, psychological) distance between the murderers and their victims.

In pre-WWII Poland and in the Soviet Union, “no firearm, not even a shotgun,” could be lawfully possessed without a government permit. For most people, “such permits were impossible to obtain.” (Ainsztein, p. 304; see also Chaika Grossman, The Underground Army: Fighters of Bialystok Ghetto, trans. Schmuel Beeri [N.Y.: Holocaust Library, 1987; first pub. in Israel 1965], p. 3.) “Not to allow the peasants to have arms” had been the policy “from time immemorial.” (Ainsztein, p. 304.) In this regard, Lenin and Stalin carried on the Russian czarist tradition, as they did in many other ways. (See generally Eugene Lyons, Stalin: Czar of All the Russias [Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1940]; Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar [N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004].)

In Poland, the main way that firearms got into citizens’ hands was peasant scavenging of rifles that had been left behind from the battles of World War I (1914-1918) and the Russo-Polish War (1919-1920). Usually the rifle barrels would be sawed short, for concealment. (Ainsztein, p. 304.) But thanks to the 1939 Hitler-Stalin Pact, the Soviet Union invaded and conquered the eastern third of Poland at the beginning of World War II. The Soviet secret police, the NKVD, “took great care to disarm the local population, and was very successful.” (Ibid.)

The one big chance to acquire arms was in the chaos immediately after June 22, 1941. In those first weeks, the Soviet army reeled in retreat, leaving large quantities of weapons behind. But the abandoned arms tended to be in rural areas (where Polish peasants picked up many), whereas most Jews lived in cities or towns. (Ibid.)

During the chaotic early weeks on the Eastern Front, the Nazis successfully deterred most Jews from attempting to scavenge arms. As in every nation conquered by the Third Reich, being caught with a firearm meant instant death for oneself and one’s family, and perhaps even for others, in reprisal. This was especially so for Jews. Disarmed, the Jews and Roma were soon destroyed.

Victims of a mass shooting perpetrated by organized government are just as dead as victims of a mass shooting perpetrated by a lone nut. Adopt the broadest definition of “mass shooting” that you want (e.g., three victims wounded, one killed). Add up all the mass shooting deaths from lunatics, organized crime, jihadist cells and ordinary criminals. The global, historical total of mass shooting deaths will be gruesome, and it will also be small compared to the total of mass shooting deaths perpetrated by criminal governments — including Fascists, Communists and non-ideological tyrants.

University of Hawaii political science professor R.J. Rummel compiled demographic data regarding genocide. He estimated the total number of victims of mass murders by governments from 1901 to 1990 to be 169,198,000. (Rudolph J. Rummel, Death by Government [Piscataway, N.J.: Transaction Pub., 2d ed. 2000].) This figure does not include deaths from wars; it includes only deliberate mass murder of civilian populations.

Because Rummel was only studying situations in which governments were engaged in major efforts to exterminate a large number of people, his 169 million victims figure does not include smaller-scale mass murders, including mass shootings. For example, if government agents shoot up a political rally, or attack an opposition newspaper, killing dozens of people, those deaths would not be included in Rummel’s figures.

There are lots of means to perpetrate mass murder: with poison gas, with bombs, by running people over with trucks, working them to death in slave labor camps, or even by hacking them with machetes, as in Rwanda. However, mass shootings have been among the most common methods of mass murder around the world for more than a century. Even when victims are killed by other means, such as deliberate starvation or gas chambers, a government monopoly of arms is essential for governments being able to prevent the victims from resisting.

The illegitimate “governments” that perpetrate mass shootings or other forms of mass murder have worked assiduously to ensure that their intended victims are disarmed. This was true in Turkish Armenia in World War I;  in Darfur, Sudan;  in Indonesia’s ethnic cleansing of East Timor; in Bosnia; in Kenya and Uganda; in Ethiopia against the Anuak; and in many other places.

Gun prohibition advocates insist that armed self-defense could not possibly make a difference when governments perpetrate mass shootings or other forms of mass murder. But this is true only for strawman scenarios. Of course the Jews in Nazi Germany could not have overthrown Hitler by themselves. Nor could the Jewish or Roma peasants in eastern Poland have single-handedly driven the Wehrmacht back to Germany. But at the least, armed resisters can fight back and kill some of the perpetrators. If every one of the 1 million Jews and Roma who were murdered by the Einsatzgruppen had possessed a good rifle, then it would not have been so simple for a million people to be  slaughtered by a few thousand. Plenty of Einsatzgruppen would have been shot and that would at least have slowed down the pace of murders, providing more time for some potential victims to escape, and making it harder for Hitler’s regime to recruit replacements.

Notwithstanding the assertions of anti-gun lobbyists that victim resistance is futile, the governments that perpetrate mass murders do fear armed citizens. That is why rigorous disarmament of the victims almost always precedes the killings.

Besides denying the universal human right that is recognized by the U.S. Second Amendment, the perpetrators also deny the universal human right recognized by the First Amendment: the exchange of information. It was not until early 1942 that Eastern European Jews began to realize that when Nazis moved people out of a city or town, the purpose was not deportation for slave labor, but rather extermination. The news of the Nazis’ actual intentions was first spread by a Jan. 1, 1942, manifesto written by Abba Kovner, a young poet in Vilnius, Lithuania. Kovner’s words were smuggled from ghetto to ghetto:

“Let us not go to slaughter like sheep! Jewish youth, do not trust the deceivers. . . . Hitler has invented a system for the destruction of all the Jews on Europe….It is true that we are weak and we have nobody to help us. But our only dignified answer to the enemy must be resistance! Brothers, it is better to die like free fighters than to live by the murderer’s grace. Resist until your last breath!”

(Ainsztein, p. 499.)

“It can’t happen here,” some people say about the United States. But during the 1930s, there were lots of American supporters of Fascism and Communism. Today, there are far too many people on the political far left and far right who are openly hostile to civil liberty and to the Constitution. They palpably yearn to be ruled by a strongman. On nearly every college campus, many professors indoctrinate students in Marxist thinking, which in practical application is little different from Hitlerite thinking. As detailed by the Canary Mission, Jew-hating student “leaders” are common on American college campuses; like their brownshirt ancestors of the 1920s in Germany, they use violence and intimidation to suppress speech in favor of Jewish resistance to exterminationists, which today include organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

Germany in 1900 was one of the most tolerant places in the world for Jews; in any country, things can change a lot in a few decades.

Contrary to the claims of the gun prohibition lobbies, sensible policies to minimize mass shootings are not simply a matter of confiscating guns from law-abiding citizens. The better approach was adopted by the United States as World War II loomed in Europe. First, laws should attempt to prevent firearms acquisition by individuals who have proven they are particularly likely to use firearms offensively. The first broad federal law to do so was the Federal Firearms Act of 1938, which, among other things, prohibited firearms sales to felons. This was later strengthened by the Gun Control Act of 1968. Today, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System works towards the same objective.

Second a policy for reducing the death toll of mass shootings also means ensuring that lawful defenders have the means to resist. This means abolishing laws that forbid licensed, trained adults to carry defensive handguns in certain locations, such as churches. It means not depriving good citizens of effective arms of resistance — such as Stephen Willeford’sAR-15 rifle that instantly ended the killing spree in Sutherland Springs, Tex., on Nov. 5.

Most of all, it means ensuring that our nation can never be turned into a “gun-free zone,” in which a rogue government could perpetrate mass shootings without resistance. Thus, after Congress passed the Federal Firearms Act of 1938, it passed the Property Requisition of Act of 1941. This was the first of several federal statutes to outlaw federal gun registration and gun confiscation. The act was informed by what had already taken place in Europe, where Hitler and Stalin used registration lists to confiscate guns, create gun-free zones, and then perpetrate mass shootings. Registration, confiscation, extermination.

Humane and sensible firearms policy aims to deter illegitimate, offensive uses of firearms, and to foster legitimate, defensive uses. Unreasonable and unfair policy disarms everyone except the government and its favored elites. Not every nation that adopts the latter policy ends up with genocide. Yet the historical record is clear that mass disarmament of citizens can be the gateway to millions of deaths by mass shooting.

Some of this essay is based on Kopel’s book “The Morality of Self-Defense and Military Action: The Judeo-Christian Perspective” (Praeger 2017).

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/11/09/mass-shootings-in-gun-free-nations/

[saundrahuff-blog]

A love of history

If you love history, few things are better than going to that place you've read about, and stand in the same place, touch the same thing as someone who you just read about. Standing on a battlefield, knowing that people who believed in something enough to die for, or how are trusting someone that is betting on your life in a battle. You can go to almost anywhere, history is there. Strangely, if you love history, a lot of things are better than being able to say I was there when that happened. During something that will become a turning point in history, living it, watching it happen, you loose the romance. Case in point. I was stationed in Berlin, Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall. I was in the army, a SPC, assigned to US Command of Berlin. I saw and heard a lot. I saw more than what is taught in books. No one hardly mentions about the uncertainties. I used to joke that it is impossible to get lost in that city. Walk straight until you hit a wall, follow it around until you reach your sector. It was divided into three sections, French, British, American. The Russians built the wall around those three sectors. When the demonstrations started in east block countries, when we watched so many protesters risking their lives to get a chance at freedom, we knew how the Russians were not sure what to do. Ever see an uncertain Russian? Now think. During this time, communications between troops and Russian command wasn't reliable. There was a whole troop of Russians who disappeared. There last command given to them was to attack if things go bad. So, word is give to open the wall. Yay! Great! Where the hell is that Russian troop? No clue? Should we be worried? Yes? Well fuck me sideways with a cactus. Just what the hell do we do now? Wait? That seems good. We knew they were out there. We also knew exactly where their weapons were pointed. If we arm ourselves, will that just provoke the Russians into attacking? Who knew! As soldiers, we were given a list of rules in hopes that it would not create further tension. First, stay away from the breaches in the wall. Stay away from East Berliners coming over to west. O not tell anyone you are an American soldier. Do not participate in anything. Those rules were the best shot we had of not creating tension. But...... Being the fact that most soldiers were in their twenties, yeah, that realistically had no chance of happening. Any of it. I worked in the Generals office. The highest military position. He only answered to Washington. And guess where me and everyone else was that worked in that office? There was no way this was going to happen and me not see it. It was scary. The first ones to walk and drive thru to west side were the bravest people alive. You have to understand what life was like on the east side of that wall. Their version of the KGB was called Stassi. They were everywhere. You didn't say anything bad about the government. You don't know who was listening. It was common for people to never come home. And a fear of asking what happened. Whole families could disappear. If you did come back, it was years later, broken. Their fear was real. There was a definite reason for them to fear. The wall on their side was more than that wall. It was land mines, barbed wires, guards with guns loaded and cocked, dogs trained to kill. To come over either side, you went thru Checkpoint Charlie. You had a pass that was stamped by American, British, French, and Russians. The Russians would count you, if you were in a group. There were cameras everywhere. No attempt to disguise them. They were there, letting everyone know, they can see you do anything and everything. The soldiers were in charge of stop lights. It turned red every time, so they can count you and confirm same amount of people are in that group. Imagine how it was to live that way 24/7. So the ones taking those first steps over had to be the bravest, most scared people ever. But, once that part was over and nothing happened, it became a flood. Families who were separated by the wall would finally see each other again since decades ago. People who had no freedom, finally saw what freedom was. And to be completely honest, it was a fucking party that lasted three months. Beer was cheaper, people bought drinks for everyone. Bars wouldn't charge, at least some of them. It was festival time. Celebrations going on every day, everywhere. How in the hell my office thought we would be able to resist that much temptation is a wonder. I only got caught once. I would like to claim it was accidental, but I would be lying. I got my picture in one of their newspapers, in a big ass crowd. I assumed I was safe because there were hundreds in that picture. But damned if my COL didn't recognize me. When he handed me that paper and asked if I recognized anyone, the words left my mouth even before they hit my brain. Fuck. Thank God this man was a saint. He yelled at me for being so stupid not to notice who was taking pictures. And the next time I was so stupid to get myself on film, he was going to let happen what was threatened. Lesson learned. Lots of things happened in those first three months. Parties. Even the Russians came over and partied. They didn't have a lot of money, so they would "borrow" a tank and drive it to the bars. Now, honestly, seeing a tank parked outside a bar wasn't the scariest thing. It was when those drunk Russians decided to go home with the tank. I will never forget the time I watched a tank drive over cars, medians, everything. It's not something you forget. The damage those things did I think were the reasons our commanders silently let us go. At least our guys weren't driving a tank. And we learned about East German cars. There was only one brand, called a trabount. Spelling could be wrong. But to get one, your parents needed to put your name on a waiting list, pay for it, and wait 30 some odd years to get it. And it broke down a lot. It was also very common to see the streets littered with these cars. The best part was that since they used the crappiest parts, it was light enough that about four people could lift the son of a bitch up and move it to the side of the road. That was weird watching that. Everyone got used to seeing a lot of new and strange things. One of my best memories was when there was a meeting with top commanders of all the battalions, and in the middle of it, sounds of shouting and metal meeting metal. My COL asked what was going on, so I looked out the window. "It's nothing. Just a drunk tank going home." And the meeting continued. It happened that much. But still, that lost Russian troop was a concern. No one knew where they were. So in the back of all our minds was this reality. The party could end in a really bad way. The actual wall did not disappear. So if those soldiers decided to attack, the thought that we were literally trapped and surrounded with no way out was never too far away. Plus, the city of Berlin became a refugee camp. East Berliners didn't trust their government. It could come crashing back down and they would loose their freedom. So there were thousands that left the east and refused to go back. We had to find places for them, food, shelter, and as safe a place as we could find. All of us did. The Americans, French, British, and west Berliners. We saw a lot of people step up and help out with impossible numbers. But together, all of us, we managed. And to listen to them, what they lived thru, the missing family members, the prison camps, the torture. I honestly can't say I would trust them either. So all of that was what was going on. But reading about it, you don't add in about the idiot soldier getting caught being were she shouldn't have. You don't know about the daily fear of where in the hell were those troops. You don't think how commonplace a group of drunk Russians driving a tank home was. You don't know the agony of trying to do normal things at work when every last one of you is hungover. You don't even realize how much it stank from all those shitty East German cars. And tanks. And when that drunk tank ran over cars with people in them, how do you bring that up to the Russians. And during all this, remember the stassies. Once the people realized that this reality and freedom was for forever, they wanted to know what happened to their loved ones. If someone found out someone was a stassi, they would take that person and gather a group together and beat them. No one survived one of those beatings. If they found one of their offices, there would be this huge crowd of very angry people who could tear that building apart. They kept records of who was taken and what happened, so the goal was to find the records. Before they were destroyed. I accidentally walked into one while I was very pregnant with my daughter. It happened so fast. One moment I'm just walking with a friend, and the next I'm in the middle of hundreds of very angry people carrying what ever weapon they had. But as angry as they were, Germans have a love of children that is so wonderful. Once they noticed a pregnant me, they surrounded me and walked me out and gave me some very good advice I didn't need, to go home. I had the quickest route already mapped out in my head and my feet pointed in that direction. I thanked them and followed their advice. Fear is a great motivator. Say what you want, it is. I took my ass home and didn't go anywhere else besides work and back home. But I have a piece of the wall that I actually took from it. I have commemorative books and photos from the ceremonies. I have a cobble stone from checkpoint Charlie. And when someone talks about it, I can tell them the parts that are wrong or missing. But I don't look at any of those as I do something historical that I read about. I've caught myself thinking about how much I would love to have something that came from some historical event. I don't really think of that time as historical, it's more a memory. That distance that is in place when you are engrossed in learning about one event is gone. And sometimes it makes me sad that I can't view that time as I do other events that I study.

[nigelwenttofrance-blog]

“She Has A Tendency To Pee On Things That Are Older Than America”

Welcome back!

As I type these words, I’m very much in my happy place aboard a TGV flying towards Nîmes from Paris at almost 300 kph (~180 mph), and reminiscing on my past 3ish weeks. Lemme tell y’all, I’ve been just a traveling FOOL, and I’m not mad about it!

There are multiple trips recounted in this, so it’s split into three sections for the three different trips: 

Berlin & Hamburg ✔️

Rome ✔️

Rotterdam ⁉️ (yes, I went back again) ✔️

Berlin and Hamburg 

So as I said at the end of the previous post, I had planned a trip for me, by me to Germany as a birthday present to myself from, you guessed it, me, but also funded by my loving and incredibly generous parents. This was actually the first journey I’d ever taken completely on my own (apart from, you know, moving across an ocean to a foreign country all alone), and to say that I was nervous would be putting it mildly. I was genuinely scared that spending an entire weekend alone, going to a country I’d never been to before, without anyone who speaks English or French to help me if I get lost...let’s just say that my maternal paranoia (but also, in my case, my sororal paranoia) was kicking in. But, I had already booked the tickets and there were no refunds to be spoken of because lol #ryanair, so I pushed the fears to the back of my mind, and I’m really glad I did: it was an incredibly successful trip!

The journey started off in Toulouse after a train ride that was too early, even for me. Toulouse is a city I’d heard some good things about, and I was glad to be able to check another French city off my list, but I was really only interested in it because there was a makeup store that I’ve wanted to go to for the past couple years—Kryolan. Since I only had a few hours of a layover between train and plane, when I arrived in Toulouse, I wandered around aimlessly for an hour or so, found the makeup shop and got what I needed (banana setting powder, in case anyone was curious) and made my way to the airport.

You are crazy, my child. You must go to Berlin! — Franz von Suppé

Now, I have to say, as excited as I was for this trip as I was planning it, I’m not entirely sure what I was thinking when I decided to go to northeastern Germany in late January, especially after having lived in the south of France for 4 months. It vaguely occurred to me as we were landing that Berlin wouldn’t have the exact same climate as Nîmes, but I was very much unprepared for the gust of actual-winter air that greeted me as I walked off the plane. And what’s worse, there was SNOW. Again, not sure what I was thinking.

All that said, Berlin has definitely been added to my list of favorite cities! I stayed at an Airbnb (well technically it was a “MisterB&B,” which is basically Airbnb, but for gay men 😂  but for all intents and purposes, it was an Airbnb), but I barely spent anytime in the apartment, even though the hosts were very friendly and had ridiculously cute home—one of them was an interior decorator. #fulfillingstereotypes

Anyway, I chose the apartment/MisterB&B because I wanted to experience a city from a “gay” perspective, and the apartment was in the gay district of Berlin, Schöneberg. But when I got to the apartment it was well after sunset (AKA 5:15), so I decided to stay close to home so I could see the rest of the city in the daylight the next day. Schöneberg was still pretty lively when I finally left the apartment to explore. I wandered around the streets for a while, popped into a view stores, and eventually stopped to look at a menu outside of a burger joint that seemed pretty promising. I was just deciding to go in, when I turned to my right, and there was a man straight up staring at me. I quickly realized, however, he wasn’t really staring, but more waiting for me to respond as he had asked me a question that went unheard over the roar of Beyoncé in my ears: he had asked me to grab a drink with him. I contemplated the idea...this was incredibly random and sure enough, I felt my maternal/sororal paranoias coming into play, telling me no, go home, you don’t know him, or where he’s been, or what his motives are... but at the same time, I was very flattered. Isn’t this the kind of thing that happens in movies? Could this man be the man of my dreams? Would we fall in love and live in Berlin and raise babies* together (babies*=puppies)?! My paternal/fraternal “eh, why not?” sense had kicked in and I shrugged and said “Sure! Why not? Free alcohol is not something I’m opposed to!”

His name was Chris, and we walked around until we found a nice bar and we sat and chatted the night away. He was German and actually from Hamburg, in Berlin for work (but don’t ask me what he does, I’m sure I don’t remember.) Anyway, come midnight or so, he decided to call it quits as his train was leaving really early in the morning, and I was falling asleep as it was, having been awake since 4.30 in the morning. Alas, Chris did not turn out to be the man of my dreams, but it was still nice to have some human interaction after traveling alone all day, and I did say I wanted a gay experience, didn’t I? #success. And beyond that, like, how bold of him! I know only like 4 people read this, but how many of you would, if you weren’t married/in committed relationships, walk up to a stranger you found attractive and ask them out? Even though you almost most definitely won’t ever read this, I applaud you, Chris, for your boldness, keep it up and teach it to the world.

But so traveling; Day TWO in Berlin was dedicated to actual, tourist-trap sightseeing. I started out with the Fernsehturm de Berlin, which is a huge TV tower in the city with an observatory at the top that has panoramic views of Berlin. I had planned to do other things before this, but in retrospect, I’m glad I decided to go there first because that line was long, and then once you finally got inside the building from the numbing wind, you were just buying a placeholder to go up to the observatory at least two hours later. It ended up working my favor, though, because after buying the tickets, I made my way to the East Side Gallery, a section of the Berlin Wall that’s still intact and covered in beautiful artwork. Now again, as it was January and also 20º, this particular adventure was mostly “take a picture, admire artwork for 2 seconds, and keep walking before my legs succumb to frostbite” as opposed to actually taking and admiring the artwork. 

While it might not have been as fulfilling as it could’ve been, it ended up working perfectly because by the time I got back to TV tower, it was time to...wait in another line 🙄 . But it didn’t last long and in no time, I was getting the view of Berlin from the top. Yet again, however, the lack of planning for this trip in terms of the weather/season, coupled with the fact that I went up during sunset, proved to be rather troublesome, and the haze from the setting sun made it incredibly difficult to see the city through the windows of the observatory. I was mildly disappointed after having done all the waiting and whatnot, but, as I looked out over Berlin, I saw a skyscraper facing the TV tower which was clearly sporting an observatory deck, sans windows. I remembered that I had read that there was a hotel that also offered panoramic views of Berlin, but of course, being myself, after reading about it, I promptly forgot. So I made my way down from the top of the TV tower—which was good timing anyway as most of the children up there had been given entirely too much liberty from their parents—and ascended the top of the hotel, and caught some absolutely gorgeous shots of Berlin with the setting sun. I’m never one to brag about my photography skills (especially not landscape photography), but I was really proud of these shots! 

So, alas, the sun had set, and so had the temperature by what felt like 10ª, so it was time for me to no longer be outside. 

Over the past few years, I had gone back and forth about getting a tragus piercing (fyi: a tragus is that funny little nubbin of cartilage toward the front of your ear) because it’s small, cute (and also not my earlobe since that trend has definitely ended). Once I finished taking pictures on the top of the hotel, I decided, spur of the moment, that this would be the trip to do it because it was the first trip I’d made solo and wanted to do something to remember it, so why not? Coincidentally, as I was meandering through Schöneberg that first night, I stumbled upon a piercing parlor, and figured it would be perfect, especially since it was in the gay district. When I got there I talked to the man in the parlor about what the whole process would be, and I quickly gathered that he was American. We of course had to chitchat for awhile about what brought us to Europe, our thoughts about the different cultures, blah blah blah and 30 minutes later, I had my ear pierced! Woo! It wasn’t nearly as painful as I thought it might be, and the worse part of the whole process actually ended up being the fact that I could hear the needle going through my cartilage with two little pops. *shivers* But it was done! I’m really happy with it, I think it adds just the right amount of extra flare to my style.

So the next day, Day 3 in Germany! I traveled to Hamburg, and I of course decided to take the ICE train (which is basically the German version of the TGV), and needless to say I was fangirling the whooooole time. But then, after I boarded, to my own surprise, I slept through the entire journey...😐 . I was thoroughly shocked when I woke up to realize that we had arrived. But, oh well, it’s still another famous train ticked off my list! 

Now Hamburg was a part of this adventure I was particularly worried about because in addition to the whole traveling alone thing, it would be my first time staying in a hostel and sharing a room with up to 5 other random humans, and those who know me well enough know that I am not very fond of other humans in my day-to-day life. That being said, I made a really good connection while I was there: When I entered the room, heart pounding, fully expecting to see some gross man cutting his yellowing toenails on the floor, instead there was a girl sitting in the windowsill on the phone and speaking American English. Once she hung up, we instantly started chatting about this and that, and I learned that her name is Daunt’e and that thanks to being a military brat, she had traveled quite literally all over the planet, and was in the process of traveling for another 3 months, just cuz. Needless to say, we had plenty to talk about. We walked around Hamburg for a few hours and then grabbed some burgers at a restaurant called Burgerlich which, in addition to being delicious, was super innovative because you did everything, from ordering your food to getting more napkins, with iPads that came out of the top of the table. We ate and drank and continued our chit chats until it was time for me to go to the place that was, if I’m being honest, the entire reason for this trip to Germany:

Miniatur Wunderland: The World’s LARGEST Model Railroad.

—NOBODY PANIC, I KNOW IT’S EXCITING, BUT I NEED EVERYONE TO CALM DOWN—

Okay, so once I got all the voices in my head to chill, I basically ran to this place and even with the hype I’d heard (hype I’d heard from, again, the voices in my head), this place was so far beyond what I could have expected.

It. Was. Incredible.

When you first walked in, you were greeted with a wall full of TVs each displaying one section of the layout, and a few guys sitting in front of what looked like incredibly intense control boards. Once past the TVs, I realized that they divided the layout into different sections based on countries or regions. They had Germany, America, Scandinavia, Switzerland, Italy and a few other places. As you walked along, you saw the different trains (duh), landscapes, architecture, culture, you name it, it was there, of each region. They had wide, open fields, an absolutely enormous replica of the Alps that was well over 10 feet tall, they even had actual water with an ACTUAL CRUISE SHIP THAT ACTUALLY MOVED AND TURNED BY ITSELF TO AND FROM AND IN AND OUT OF THE PORT; they had the mountains of the Western USA and in every region there was just...an almost painful, annoyingly precise attention to detail. Every. Single. Aspect. of Every. Single. Region was thought of and executed perfectly. They even had cars and buses and trucks that drove along the road BY THEMSELVES. They had working stoplights at which the various vehicles would stop, while using their working brake lights! And then of course, they had just a stupid amount of miniature people in the miniature worlds as well, and I swear, you could spend full months in there and you’d still find a miniature person doing some crazy, whacky things that you never noticed before. Seriously!  I’m actually kind of at a loss for words when I try to think of a way to properly describe all the probably thousands of different scenarios they had set up. One of the most impressive was a rock concert they had set up that had to have had at least 500+ miniature humans ALL doing DIFFERENT things. 

The most impressive feature of the layout had to have been the working airport. I had read about this thing online and still couldn’t believe it was real while I was looking at it. Y’all, they built an entire working model airport. With planes that quite literally land and take off! And on top of that, once the planes landed, they actually moved, by themselves, to the terminals! And when they were all full of “people,” they backed up, again, by themselves, drove to the runway, and took off. JAW: DROPPED AND SUBSEQUENTLY SHATTERED. The terminal itself was huge, and, just as the rest of the layout, filled with what had to have been thousands of individual people. 

Looking back, this place was so realistic and so well thought out,  I wouldn’t have surprised, nor mad had the miniature people actually started moving. Ugh.

I just. 

I. JUST.

I went to bed the happiest of Nigel’s that night. 

Alas, all good things must come to an end, and the next day, I flew back to Paris and caught my train back to Nîmes. But! Obviously not before I made my way to Chipotle, and ended up getting a FREE burrito because the French are apparently yet to have mastered the fine art of wrapping a burrito that’s the size of a newborn child. I must admit, I doubt it’s an easy skill to learn. Regardless I was not mad about it, y’all! 🌯

Rome

Post-German adventures, after a few days of relaxation and tutoring in Nîmes, I joined my roommate Carrie and her friend Dom (a different Dom than last time!) halfway through their own European adventure of Paris, Rome, and ending in Barcelona. When I heard about their plans I figured it’d be a perfect opportunity to finally go to Italy, as I thought it was pretty strange that I studied opera and lived in Europe for two years and still hadn’t been to Italy. What?

So day 1: The Dom, Carrie and Nigel Main Attraction Marathon 

On this day, we did all the major touristy, you-have-to-go-see-this-if-you’re-in-Rome” attractions: the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, the Pantheon, etc. Carrie’s Fitbit kept track of all our steps and I think this day was our highest! 

We did take a break from the marathon tour at one point between sight-seeing. We decided we wanted to stop and just soak up and enjoy the Italian sun and the beautiful weather that had graced our first day. We pulled up our maps and found the Villa Borghese Gardens, a park in the western part of the city and rented one of those multi-person cab/bicycle machines and drove through the park, terrifying everyone around us as we yelled in English from fear of hitting a passing pedestrian... #oops. But no one died, so I call it a successful adventure, and our sight seeing marathon continued afterwards.

Our dinner plans for each night ended up being very consistent with the exception of our first night. On this night, we decided a little too late to eat, and found ourselves getting to restaurants just as they had closed their kitchens. Carrie, however, came to the rescue with her favorite restaurant in Rome (she’s been to Rome about six times and knew the good places to go), that she had been saving for our last day. She had somehow (read: drunkenly) made friends with the owner of the restaurant, and even though it was about 6 years ago, they still remembered her and were always overjoyed to see her whenever she came back. 

The food was, of course, delicious. All three of us ordered the Cacio e Pepe, which is basically spaghetti in a spicy cheesy sauce, and what blew my mind was that they literally made the pasta in the restaurant while we drank the wine and waited! What?! Maybe it’s common practice in Italian culture, but I couldn’t believe it! 

The next day, Day 2 in Rome!, we all went to our separate corners for most of the day. Dom, who was doing her very first European trip, and who had been sick while in Paris, needed a day to recover; Carrie, being the health-nut that she is, went on a very long run and if I’m not mistaken got very lost; and I grabbed my bag and my camera and kinda just wandered around the city for a few hours. We met up later for a group wander around the city, but didn’t see anything too exciting (relatively speaking of course, this is Rome we’re talking about). But as dull as Day 2 might seem, it was the night we had our first Italian aperitivo which we ended up doing this every night for the rest of the trip because of its genius. It’s basically like the American happy hour, but with a brilliant twist: it’s 10€ for one glass of wine or cocktail as well as an all you can eat buffet that’s unique to each restaurant. GENIUS.  This ended up being a fantastic way to go to a variety of restaurants without breaking the bank and might be one of the things I miss the most about Rome.

Day 3 in Rome! was what most people would consider the big day if you’re in Rome: we went to see St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican and its many, many, many museums. It goes without saying that everything was beautiful. And even more beautiful, the longest wait we had was only about an hour and a half! True perks of sight-seeing during the off-season! It was so uncrowded, that we actually walked straight into the Vatican museums, no lines, no wait! Carrie, having been to Rome multiple times, said that she had once waited for 4 hours to get into the museums and was stunned that Dom and I just waltzed in as if we were going to Target. Carrie also, citing that she had been multiple times, declined to join us into the museums. I didn’t understand at first, especially since she had already toured the Colosseum with us, but it didn’t take long for me to get the picture.The Vatican Museums have just an insane amount of artwork, having been in the process of collecting over centuries by the various Popes. I can only imagine that after waiting in line for up to 4 hours, walking around and trying to absorb the thousands of pieces of art for another 4 hours would be nothing less than exhausting. 

Dom and I decided to leave the Sistine Chapel for last, knowing full well that if we started there, we’d probably just leave afterwards 😂. And of course, not being art buffs as well as already feeling the past 2.5 days of walking in our feet, were not stopping to admire every single piece, so we had what I’m sure a lot of other tourists would consider a speedy pace through the museums, and yet it still took us about 3 hours. 

So now, here’s a point where I realize, as I type, that there’s a potential for an #unpopularopinion: I was rather underwhelmed by the Sistine Chapel.

Lemme explain.

Every time you hear about the Sistine Chapel or see anything about it, you see or hear about The Creation of Adam, so I thought that that painting would be the main focus, or the biggest part of the ceiling. I was quite mistaken. While it is very much in the center, it was the same size as the rest of the paintings, and it actually took me a hot second to find it! All that said, the Chapel (as well as the entire Vatican and its museums), was breathtaking, but definitely does not look like it does on the box... I guess what I should say is that I was going into the experience expecting something very, very different.

But so okay, world renowned piece of culture and art officially checked off my list! Woo! 

Carrie, again with her traveling prowess, had compiled a list of restaurants that we had to try while we were there, and so after St. Peter’s Basilica, but before the museums, we went to check one out. Usually, the list had details about the restaurant listed such as recommended dishes, best times to go, etc. but the restaurant we went post-Peter, Bonci, had only one thing written: GO. Knowing Carrie, this was no joke, and sure enough, it wasn’t.

 Bonci is a “pizzarium” that uses all natural ingredients and makes handmade pizzas. It was a “street restaurant” and so once you had your pizza, you sat outside and enjoyed the Roman sun while your mind was absolutely blown by the delicious pizza. The pizzas they make are very square (literally, not metaphorically), very large, and basically in HD. I’ve never seen so many pizzas in so many bright and vibrant colors that all looked so good. Needless to say, I got seconds...and then went back the next day for thirds.

The next day, Day 4 in Rome!, we three musketeers disbanded yet again for the morning and went our separate ways for a few hours. I had found an article online about interesting things to do and see off the beaten path in Rome, and read about a canon that’s apparently fired everyday to signal that it’s noon. This is apparently done to help all the churches and cathedrals in the city know the exact time so they can set their bells to toll at the same time. When I got to the top of the massive hill, sweaty and dehydrated, I was surprised to find a sizable crowd there, and even more surprised to hear that the majority of the crowd was made up of Italians. They were all lined up along the edge of a hill and at the bottom was the cannon and three soldiers. Out in the distance was a gorgeous panoramic view of Rome that really took my breath away. But so, the cannon was indeed fired, and my ears indeed started to ring because I was, indeed, standing too close to it. #oops. But alas, that was my last day in Italy, and after another night of aperitivo, the next day I was on my plane back to France, while Dom and Carrie continued on Barcelona. And, yes I was, indeed, jealous.

Rotterdam

So if you haven’t gathered the idea yet, I really, really, really enjoy the Netherlands, and decided after visiting this summer that I’d go as often as possible while doing TAPIF. Something about the culture and of course the friends I’d made there make every trip I’ve made so far just incredibly successful, and this time was no exception. 

Well, there was actually one exception to this non-exempt trip: to keep things cheap, I usually take the TGV from Nîmes to Paris, and then take an 8 hour bus ride from Paris to Amsterdam. For some, 8 hours is entirely too much, but to me, after having done 8 hours to and from CT and Pittsburgh in college, it was quite run of the mill, and even better, the bus from Paris to Amsterdam is usually relatively empty and quiet. On this trip however, that was not the case.

First off, I don’t know WHAT was going on with the bus driver, but homeboy could not drive in a straight line and we literally swerved from one side of the lane to the other the whole way from Paris to Brussels. But, in reality since it was a giant coach bus, we were actually swerving from one side of our lane to the other side of the lane next us. We finally stopped in Brussels and thankfully changed drivers, but now the bus was suddenly full of people. I, somehow, miraculously, still had two seats to myself. So, as the bus started to roll along, I put my headphones back in and let most likely Beyoncé sing away the next however many hours...until I heard that dreaded sound. The sound of logs being sawed in half, the sound of a manual car’s gears grinding as you fail to shift gears, the sound of a motorcycle idling at a stop light: snoring. LOUD snoring.

I took out my headphones in disbelief that someone’s lack of nasal strips could penetrate the beauteous sounds of my Queen🐝 , and I turned and saw a dark-skinned, heavyset man in a very bright yellow shirt, mouth agape, eyes shut, sounding like he was leveling a FOREST.

So, to give you some context, I really hate snoring. Like really, really, really hate snoring, and become irrationally angry irrationally quickly when I have to sleep in a room with someone who snores. In my sleep deprived mind, I get so jealous that they get to sleep while I get to SUFFER. But this time, I wasn’t even trying to sleep, and I learned I don’t just hate snoring when I’m attempting to sleep, but in more of a general sense, in any and all forms. Thankfully, my stop, Rotterdam, was before Amsterdam, so I didn’t have to spend the entirety of the remaining bus trip contemplating violently shaking the man awake. I may be used to 8 hour trips on the road, but I have limits, y’all!

All snoring aside, this trip to the Netherlands, while successful, was definitely much more relaxed than my last three. I stayed with my friend Gert-Jan, the founder of the queer youth center The Hangout010 in Rotterdam whom I met this past summer. When I arrived, I went straight to The Hangout and had some dinner and caught up with Gert and some other friends, and happened to have arrived while some American college students were visiting Rotterdam and The Hangout while studying abroad. We had a really engaging conversation about sexuality and gender and then went to grab some drinks at a local gay bar. 

The next day was a true Nigel day: I wandered around Rotterdam for a few hours and grabbed some lunch at the Markthal, took the train to Amsterdam and then just wandered around my favorite city until it was too cold to be outside (and I of COURSE went back to the Foodhallen and spent entirely too much money). 

On day 2, I visited my Couchsurfing host from my last Dutch excusrion to Leiden, Christiaan, in Deventer, a very cute little town in the eastern part of the country. It was filled with quirky little shops, including some that sold model trains (that I somehow refrained from purchasing), one that only sold stamps, and another that had three or four enormous trays so full of postcards that I thought they were selling CDs. They had postcards of literally anything you could think of: animals, people, naked people, buildings, trains, chairs, beds, anything and everything. Needless to say, I got one from the train section.

After our mostly window shopping, Christiaan and I went back to his apartment and were thinking of what to make for make dinner, and decided on ginger pumpkin chutney with some cheese and bread, as well as pumpkin curry that ended up being a lot better than I thought it would! The chutney, too, was outstanding, and within a half an hour, both were completely demolished. 

I got back to Rotterdam late that night, and the next day, unfortunately had to leave until who knows when! 😫  😖  😭

The Journey Home

“Nigel, why in the world would you write about the journey home, it couldn’t have been that exciting.” I know, I know, but this one ended up being really funny! (And also the source of the title 😉 ).

Well I got on the bus in Amsterdam. I sat down. A very handsome man sits down next to me (and was I mad about it? Y’all know I was not!). But, as it was 8.45 in the morning, I didn’t really try to strike up a conversation. 

Until!

I realized I had left all the food I had for the trip in my bag which was now in the overhead bin. Not thinking, I asked him in English if I could get out and he looked at me in shock. As it turned out, even though he was indeed French, he had spent a year abroad in California, and had been dying to find an American with whom he could practice his English. His name was Cyril. We got to talking and I heard about his time in SoCal and I told him about my being a teacher blah blah...and then we got to talking about what we were doing in the Netherlands. We had both only gone for the weekend, and both had gone for the sake of seeing good friends. And then, almost to himself, he mentioned that the bus ride to Amsterdam had been awful. I commented that mine had been pretty awful too, the worst part being the snoring man...Cyril stopped me: “was he like a bigger guy with a really crazy bright yellow shirt?” I looked at him curiously...and asked him if the first bus driver had been just completely incompetent at driving in a straight line, and it was confirmed: we had been on the same bus! We laughed about it for a while and once we got to Paris, we exchanged Facebooks and went our separate ways. 

For the train ride home, I was hoping for a quiet ride so I could write this blog post. Just as the train was leaving, I realized no one had sat down next to me, and was very thankful for the extra space, and settled in to recounting my adventures. But then of course, a woman sits down next to me. Womp. Oh well, I told myself, no biggie. So I try and get some typing done until I realize, this woman is fiddling with a very thick and very long, purple rope. What? I do my best to inconspicuously see what it leads to, but with no luck. Until the other end of the rope suddenly...moves! It was a dog! And a beautiful one at that. Now again, as is the case when I see any dog, my mind just shut down and I started speaking to her in English about her dog. Thankfully, she was American too, and we talked the whole ride down.

Yvette, I learned, was from Colorado (Denver, I think) and just so happened to also be doing TAPIF in a town called Béziers, not too too far from Nîmes. We gabbed about life abroad and what is was like to be a teacher (she’s a primary school teacher, too) and so on. Eventually, her dog, Kaya, got tired of being on the floor in the aisle and decided she’d be more comfortable between Yvette and myself which I, of course, had no problem with. I asked her what it was like to have your dog with you while living abroad, and Yvette explained that, while it certainly had its perks, it could be frustrating when it came to traveling: the TGVs never had enough space for everyone’s luggage let alone a dog, and keeping an eye on the dog proved to be difficult when your eyes are seeing the sights: 

“I have to be very mindful of her when we go sightseeing,” she told me. “I’ve realized that Kaya has a tendency to pee on things that are older than America. We went to some ancient church in Béziers, and I looked up to admire it, and then looked down to see Kaya peeing on it.”

Needless to say, I cackled and promptly retitled this blog post.

Alas, that was the last day of my vacation. Since then, it’s back to the grind here in Nîmes with teaching and tutoring in full swing. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous as the perks of living the south of France have made themselves apparent with 60º+ weather and days full of sunshine.

Et c’est tout! Thanks to those who read all of my ramblings, this one in particular was a doozy, but I really appreciate it! Next post(s) will be hopefully a trip to Portugal and Madrid for April vacation (omg I’m so excited I can’t even, I can literally only odd), and maybe a weekend trip or two during the vacation-less month of March!

Until next time!