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Directories
Ratzinger, er, I mean, Pope Benedict XVI
Well, I have to say I was surprised with today’s developments. I really wasn’t expecting the election of the Pope until the end of the week. I also hadn’t expected that Ratzinger would win. He seemed more of a Pope-Maker than a Pope. My hope was that the Cardinal of Vienna would be elected. I thought it more likely that a moderate-to-conservative Latin American Pope would be elected who would speak for the developing world and maybe bring the liberal and conservative sides closer together.
Ratzinger is extremely unpopular here in Germany. Rainer tells me that when he left for the Vatican, the citizens of Munich celebrated. Rainer is predicting that the small group of practising German Catholics will now run screaming from the Church. Rainer also jokes that Ratzinger probably blackmailed his way to the Papacy.
I think the Vatican’s refusal to sanction the use of condoms is genocide. I think the Church is in large part responsible for the rampant spread of AIDS in the Third World. Ratzinger is extremely conservative, more so than Pope John Paul II, meaning it is unlikely that he will change this stance. Let’s hope that some of his fundamentalism was due to his role as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. We will see what the future has in store.
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What a nice guy!
This guy is the grandson of one of my ancestors. Nice huh?
From an article on wikipedia.com:
Hugh (1286 - November 26, 1326) was sometimes referred to as “the younger Despenser”. He was the son and heir of Hugh le Despenser, Earl of Winchester, by Isabel Beauchamp, daughter of William de Beauchamp, 9th Earl of Warwick.
He was knight of Hanley Castle, Worcestershire, King’s Chamberlain, Constable of Odiham Castle, Keeper of the castle and town of Dryslwyn, and Cantref Mawr, Carmarthenshire, Keeper of the castle and town of Portchester, Keeper of the castle, town and barton of Bristol. He was also Keeper of the castles, manor, and lands of Brecknock, Hay, cantref Selyf, etc., co. Brecon, and Huntington, Herefordshire.
In May 1306 Hugh was knighted, and that summer he married Eleanor de Clare, a granddaughter of King Edward I of England. Her grandfather owed Hugh’s father vast sums of money, and the marriage was intended as a payment of these debts. When Eleanor’s brother was killed at the Battle of Bannockburn, she unexpectedly became one of the three co-heiresses to the rich Gloucester earldom, and in her right Hugh inherited Glamorgan and other properties. In just a few short years Hugh went from a landless knight to one of the wealthiest magnates in the kingdom.
Eleanor was also the niece of the new king, Edward II of England, and this connection brought Hugh closer to the English royal court. He joined the baronial opposition to Piers Gaveston, the king’s favorite, and Hugh’s brother-in-law, as Gaveston was married to Eleanor’s sister. Eager for power and wealth, Hugh seized Tonbridge Castle in 1315. The next year he murdered Llywelyn Bren, a Welsh hostage in his custody.
Hugh Despenser became royal chamberlain in 1318. As a royal courtier, Hugh manoeuvred into the affections of King Edward, displacing the previous favorite, Roger d’Amory. By 1320 his tyranny was running free. Hugh seized the Welsh lands of his wife’s inheritance, ignoring the claims of his two brothers-in-law. He forced Alice de Lacy, Countess of Lincoln, to give up her lands, cheated his sister-in-law Elizabeth de Clare out of Gower and Usk, and had Lady Baret’s arms and legs broken until she went insane. He also vowed to be revenged on Roger Mortimer because Mortimer’s grandfather had murdered Hugh’s grandfather, and once stated that he regreted he could not control the wind. By 1321 he had earned many enemies in every strata of society, from Queen Isabella to the barons to the common people. There was even a bizarre plot to kill Hugh by sticking pins in a wax likeness of him.
Finally the barons prevailed upon King Edward and forced Hugh and his father into exile in 1321. His father fled to Bordeaux, and Hugh became a pirate in the English channel, “a sea monster, lying in wait for merchants as they crossed his path”. The pair returned the next year and King Edward quickly reinstated Hugh as royal favorite. His time in exile had done nothing to quell his greed, his rashness, or his ruthlessness. Queen Isabella fled to France, where she formed a liaison with Roger Mortimer and began planning an invasion. Hugh tried to bribe French courtiers to assassinate Queen Isabella. This plan failing, he instead arranged for the death of Mortimer’s uncle, Roger Mortimer of Chirk, who was in his custody. When Mortimer and the queen invaded, King Edward was desposed, Hugh’s father was executed, and Hugh himself was captured.
Hugh tried to starve himself before his trial, but face trial he did on November 24, 1326. He was judged a traitor and a thief, was drawn and quartered, and his testicles were severed and burnt before him. He was beheaded, and his head was mounted on the gates of London.
Charlie @ 6 weeks
Dum dum da dum… As promised, photos from our visit with Charlie:
Charlie in deep thought about what to chew on next.
Charlie’s brief possession of the rubber ball (He was quite the gentleman and let his sister play with it most of the time).
Mole-hunting in the wilds of Brandenburg!
Aren’t they cute!?!
Sleepytime!
I can’t sleep!!!
I haven’t been sleeping well for… months now. Man, if it meant an increase in productivity, I would be happy, but alas it does not. My back is definitely doing better on the new medication. I can sit for much longer stretches, during which I have been doing GENEALOGY research like a mad woman! I’ve entered 25 generations into my family tree program so far, and one of my lines may go back to William the Conquerer. I think that’s pretty cool. I say “may”, because I have not had a chance to double check all the links in between me and him yet, which I try to do as much as possible. I also read somewhere that every asian person is a genetic descendent of Genghis Khan.
I am also apparently related to every single person in Stamford, Connecticut. What kind of place is this now? It seems that my ancesters were freaky puritans and decided to start this village. Maybe I should stop by there sometime, or actually, maybe not.
But, if you think about it, there were not many humans around in the very beginning, so everybody is related to everybody else anyway.
We’re going to visit Charlie tomorrow. I will post pictures! And in the coming weeks I WILL give this site a major facelift. Yeah, after I train the dog, finish the genealogy research, write my book, paint that masterpiece, etc. I learned html but never bother using it, I’m such a lazy git.
You’ve got to "Pimp My Fahrrad"
This is a new show here on MTV Germany (Fahrrad = Bicycle). Somehow, I don’t think my bike needs speakers and an MP3 player, but it is an entertaining show.
Today was Kurt Cobain/Nirvana day on MTV Germany to commemorate the 11th anniversary of his suicide.
I like a lot of Nirvana’s music, but I’m not sure it is really worth all the hype that surrounds that band. It’s just because of Cobain’s suicide. If Eddie Vedder had offed himself after Vs., Pearl Jam would be the band that “changed” everything (can you tell I’m a PJ fan? - and luckily Eddie does not seem to have suicidal tendencies, although he does drink an awful lot). Why do we tend to idolize stars who die young? I suppose it is the whole “what if they lived?” thing. Well, I guess Nirvana would have broken up (they basically had) and I dunno, maybe Cobain would have continued to make great music, but maybe he would’ve fizzled. Since his heart had stopped due to drug overdoses several times in the years prior to his suicide, I guess if he hadn’t have done it then, he would have done it later. Personally, I think his lyrics for the most part make no sense. I mean, what the heck deep meaning do you get out of “a mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido, yeah!”
Also, while I would rate certain Nirvana songs higher, I kind of like Foo Fighters songs better in general. Go Dave Grohl! (he went to my high school, but we never found out which locker was his).
German News
Recent news here has been dominated by Terry Schiavo and the Pope. From Der Spiegel’s English website summarizing German papers:
Die Tageszeitung: The extreme politicization of her case and enormous media attention ensured that she wasn’t able to die in peace. Worse yet, she couldn’t control her own death. “Instead, her husband, her parents, attorneys, judges, religious fanatics [emp. added] and, not least, politicians, fought publicly and full of hate over her destiny… Traditional Republicans have become the political arm of the Christian right and in doing so have destroyed some of their fundamental beliefs: the refusal to interfere in people’s private matters and not to meddle with the control of individual states.Berliner Zeitung: “seldom have politicians sought to use a person’s death in such an obvious and bigoted way for their own purposes… The debate about liberal judges, assisted suicide and abortions will start now that Schiavo’s has died. And what really motivated politicians to interfere in a person’s death will first become apparent now. Certainly it has nothing to do with values, decency or morals.”
In other German news, Michael Douglas got a facelift and Arnold Schwarzenegger was photographed in his bathing suit on a beach and he’s — egads! — flabby! Man, I think he looks damn good for a guy in his 50’s.
I was Republican. Not because I believed in the oppression of minorities (religious, racial, sexual), but because I believed that the government should mind it’s own business and leave most things up to the state governments. Now with this new Christian Right movement in the Republican Party…
My sucky neighbors are getting on my nerves!!!
Someone threw paint off their balcony. Who does this kind of crap? Who throws white paint into their neighbors flowerbeds???
Over the 13 months I have lived here I have found hundreds of cigarette butts, trash, dozens of broken clothespins, dozens of plastic bags, underwear, a pig nose… I’m sick of it.
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