September 11 and after
Sep. 13th, 2005 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
choco_froshOK, apologies for not posting much (like you noticed, but this is really more relevant to Sunday). Sunday when I got home I was completely wiped, and Monday I was out having incredibly cheep pizza with, like, half the Fulbright group AND the exchange students from next door AND Dave from Kentucky AND TC’s girlfriend. In addition, I’ve been preoccupied with trying to finish Rosendorfer’s Letters from the Chinese Past and buying a Bahnkarte…goals which have sometimes interfered with each other, as in Munich where I forgot to do the second ‘cause I was doing the first. Both are now as accomplished as they’re going to get...so time to update, write emails, usw.
Hm, I seem to be telling this story back to front, homerikos. ANYWAY. Cut for transportation snafus and remembrance services.
Through what is commonly called chance (though my inherent dumbness may have more to do with it), I hopped a bus/ferry/bus/train combo to Lindau a little earlier than planned. On getting into the train station in that city (on an eirily deserted train), my first thought was “$h!t, I only have about five minutes to buy a Bayernticket before my train leaves for Friedrichshafen.”
My second thought was “Duh, I could have just stayed in Friedrichshafen, instead of getting on this train. I’m an idiot”
Closely followed by, “Wait a sec. That train goes through Ulm! In Baden-Würtemberg! My Bayernticket is not going to work. @£$%^&!”
So I found myself wandering around Lindau, trying to find a church, since it was Sunday and I had an hour or so to kill before the next train. It’s quite a nice little town, even more touristy than Konstanz…eventually found churches (the Protestant and Catholic ones are next to each other, which I think is pretty cool: both heavily rebuilt medieval). Unfortunately, both were just getting out. Fortunately, there was an ecumenical remembrance service in half an hour, at the Peterkirche, it being 11. September and the Tag der Öffenen Denkmal (“Open monuments”). Unfortunately, when I finally found someone who wasn’t a tourist, I completely misunderstood his directions, and wound up wandering in what turned out to be the wrong direction. “Oh well,” I thought, “I’ll go look around. Anyway, Lindau isn’t very big.” So I climbed up the remaining bit of the old city wall, and went around the Diebsturm (another case of seeing something you’d seen only in pictures--it's destinctive enough that it made its way onto that 16th century map), and unexpectedly came upon St. Peter’s, a thousand years old and built into the city wall, with medieval wall paintings and memorials of the Lindauer fallen in war. The service, as such, touched on them as well as those who’d died in New York almost precisely four years before. It would have been nice if they’d given a nod to New Orleans as well, and the service wasn’t all that exciting, but it was nice to be in church. (I know,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sovay despairs...) I should have got a photo of the church or the Diebsturm, but I forgot. Instead, I went back to the harbor and took a picture of the medieval lighthouse (with plaque by pissed-off nineteenth century citizen), while I watched the mist lift off the Alps.
The whole thing got me thinking, though, about September 11, and New Orleans, the more so since we had a long and heated discussion in today’s Conversation class about Katrina. They say (and I frankly hope they’re right) that in view of his administrations’ response to the disaster, this will be the end of the Bush era. What a way to end it…though it began with catastrophe as well. Sigh. Tu autem. As James (self-confessed raging liberal) pointed out, the governor and the mayor have a good deal of guilt to bear, and so does what is commonly called chance. But Katrina inevitably gets one thinking about what (I think) Sayers said about the natural results of sin: not so much the lightning bolt as the inevitable consequences of or lust, our greed, our pride. Or in this case, of our pollution of the natural environmment…since while there have been plenty of hurricanes before, it’s hard not to speculate that Katrina may partly be the result of changed weather patterns and the warming of the Gulf of Mexico. Even though I spent part of lunch (for once, interesting and not too salty: I spent the rest of lunch eating the tentacles that Andrea didn’t want, and discussing our love of calamari, with my friend Kelly) trying unsuccessfully to get a couple of Mitfulbrighter to take global warming seriously.
But there’s hope, I guess. I never read the newspapers like I ought to, but it sounds as though, out of all the human suffering and hunger and thirst and looting and rape, the press and the democrats might actually be growing a spine. Hopefully we’ll get a different political climate in the next Congress, and maybe even some real action on issues (like the fact that the poor and the earth are still getting the shaft) that ought to cut across party lines. Hopefully Jim Wallis will be remembered as one of the great Americans, and the flooding of New Orleans (what will they call it, if and when they rebuild? If it were, say, Dallas they could call a relocated city “New Dallas”, but two new’s is just silly. Anyway, they’ll probably just rebuild, possibly with stilts. Still dumb, I think. Though I hear that the French Quarter is [not surprisingly] on higher ground and didn’t get nearly as much damage) as a turning point, just as the bombing of New York was. Hopefully it won’t be too late. Tu autem domine miserere nobis.
Happy Fact! There’s a Latin version of Wikipedia! Isn’t that nifty?
I'm the only one who cares, aren't I.
UPDATE, after far too much time on the internet:
Well, I have a certain amount of increased respect for George W. Bush, after he (sort of) took responsibility for the Fed.'s failures. But he's still a schmuck.
Meantime, the Lord Peter icon seems to have died. (Can anyone re-send it to me, now that I've figured out that LJ will let you upload piictures for your user pix?) So I've created a couple of new ones. By popular demand, an icon of Schreibergasse. (blurry) Also (for replies) Baeda, from a MS in the monastery of Ingelberg, CH. (This blog would have been named for him, but baeda and bede were already taken.) As an English historian, and a scientific-minded, frequently pessimistic Christian, with an interest in Germany that was really part of an interest in EVERYTHING, I have a lot of fellow-feeling for him.
Hm, I seem to be telling this story back to front, homerikos. ANYWAY. Cut for transportation snafus and remembrance services.
Through what is commonly called chance (though my inherent dumbness may have more to do with it), I hopped a bus/ferry/bus/train combo to Lindau a little earlier than planned. On getting into the train station in that city (on an eirily deserted train), my first thought was “$h!t, I only have about five minutes to buy a Bayernticket before my train leaves for Friedrichshafen.”
My second thought was “Duh, I could have just stayed in Friedrichshafen, instead of getting on this train. I’m an idiot”
Closely followed by, “Wait a sec. That train goes through Ulm! In Baden-Würtemberg! My Bayernticket is not going to work. @£$%^&!”
So I found myself wandering around Lindau, trying to find a church, since it was Sunday and I had an hour or so to kill before the next train. It’s quite a nice little town, even more touristy than Konstanz…eventually found churches (the Protestant and Catholic ones are next to each other, which I think is pretty cool: both heavily rebuilt medieval). Unfortunately, both were just getting out. Fortunately, there was an ecumenical remembrance service in half an hour, at the Peterkirche, it being 11. September and the Tag der Öffenen Denkmal (“Open monuments”). Unfortunately, when I finally found someone who wasn’t a tourist, I completely misunderstood his directions, and wound up wandering in what turned out to be the wrong direction. “Oh well,” I thought, “I’ll go look around. Anyway, Lindau isn’t very big.” So I climbed up the remaining bit of the old city wall, and went around the Diebsturm (another case of seeing something you’d seen only in pictures--it's destinctive enough that it made its way onto that 16th century map), and unexpectedly came upon St. Peter’s, a thousand years old and built into the city wall, with medieval wall paintings and memorials of the Lindauer fallen in war. The service, as such, touched on them as well as those who’d died in New York almost precisely four years before. It would have been nice if they’d given a nod to New Orleans as well, and the service wasn’t all that exciting, but it was nice to be in church. (I know,
sovay despairs...) I should have got a photo of the church or the Diebsturm, but I forgot. Instead, I went back to the harbor and took a picture of the medieval lighthouse (with plaque by pissed-off nineteenth century citizen), while I watched the mist lift off the Alps. The whole thing got me thinking, though, about September 11, and New Orleans, the more so since we had a long and heated discussion in today’s Conversation class about Katrina. They say (and I frankly hope they’re right) that in view of his administrations’ response to the disaster, this will be the end of the Bush era. What a way to end it…though it began with catastrophe as well. Sigh. Tu autem. As James (self-confessed raging liberal) pointed out, the governor and the mayor have a good deal of guilt to bear, and so does what is commonly called chance. But Katrina inevitably gets one thinking about what (I think) Sayers said about the natural results of sin: not so much the lightning bolt as the inevitable consequences of or lust, our greed, our pride. Or in this case, of our pollution of the natural environmment…since while there have been plenty of hurricanes before, it’s hard not to speculate that Katrina may partly be the result of changed weather patterns and the warming of the Gulf of Mexico. Even though I spent part of lunch (for once, interesting and not too salty: I spent the rest of lunch eating the tentacles that Andrea didn’t want, and discussing our love of calamari, with my friend Kelly) trying unsuccessfully to get a couple of Mitfulbrighter to take global warming seriously.
But there’s hope, I guess. I never read the newspapers like I ought to, but it sounds as though, out of all the human suffering and hunger and thirst and looting and rape, the press and the democrats might actually be growing a spine. Hopefully we’ll get a different political climate in the next Congress, and maybe even some real action on issues (like the fact that the poor and the earth are still getting the shaft) that ought to cut across party lines. Hopefully Jim Wallis will be remembered as one of the great Americans, and the flooding of New Orleans (what will they call it, if and when they rebuild? If it were, say, Dallas they could call a relocated city “New Dallas”, but two new’s is just silly. Anyway, they’ll probably just rebuild, possibly with stilts. Still dumb, I think. Though I hear that the French Quarter is [not surprisingly] on higher ground and didn’t get nearly as much damage) as a turning point, just as the bombing of New York was. Hopefully it won’t be too late. Tu autem domine miserere nobis.
Happy Fact! There’s a Latin version of Wikipedia! Isn’t that nifty?
I'm the only one who cares, aren't I.
UPDATE, after far too much time on the internet:
Well, I have a certain amount of increased respect for George W. Bush, after he (sort of) took responsibility for the Fed.'s failures. But he's still a schmuck.
Meantime, the Lord Peter icon seems to have died. (Can anyone re-send it to me, now that I've figured out that LJ will let you upload piictures for your user pix?) So I've created a couple of new ones. By popular demand, an icon of Schreibergasse. (blurry) Also (for replies) Baeda, from a MS in the monastery of Ingelberg, CH. (This blog would have been named for him, but baeda and bede were already taken.) As an English historian, and a scientific-minded, frequently pessimistic Christian, with an interest in Germany that was really part of an interest in EVERYTHING, I have a lot of fellow-feeling for him.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Why ...
Date: 2005-09-13 07:14 pm (UTC)and what arguments did your idiot classmates advance? did anyone else come to your assistance in attempting to convince them?
grr.
-g
Re: Why ...
Date: 2005-09-13 08:18 pm (UTC)I was the only liberal at the table. And it's hard to convince people who don't necessarily believe in taking responsibility for the effect of their actions on other people, and who figure that theie homes will stay above sea-level, that something needs to be done about this NOW, rather than at some more convenient time in the future. Forgot to mention the high likelihood of much of the Midwest turning into a desert...
no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 10:11 pm (UTC)Points for use of Dorothy L. Sayers in a non-novelistic context.
Re: Why ...
Date: 2005-09-14 06:29 am (UTC)