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arcticdementor · 3 years

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When we hear the term “Deep State,” we tend to think of people staffing the federal bureaucracy. I want to suggest to you that that is an incomplete way to think about it. The Deep State in Western liberal democracies consist not only of government bureaucrats, but also of the leadership in major corporations, leading universities, top media, medicine and law, science, the military, and even sports. A more accurate way to think about what we are dealing with comes from the Neoreactionary term “the Cathedral,” which NRxers use in more or less the same way that 1950s Beats used the term “the Establishment.” I like the term “Cathedral” because it entails the religious commitment these elites have to their principles. You can no more debate these principles with them than you can debate with a religious fundamentalist. They adhere to them as if they were revealed truths.

Yet they still like to pretend that they are liberals — that they favor open, reasoned discourse. This is, in fact, a lie. It is a lie that they depend on to conceal the hegemonic intolerance that they wish to impose on everybody under their authority.

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It is true that no society can tolerate everything. What the Cathedral is now doing is radically limiting discourse, and demonizing as heretics all those within its purview who dissent, no matter how reasonable their objections. (And now Facebook is incentivizing some of its users to report their friends as potential “extremists.” Please get off Facebook now!) The Cathedral seeks to make all of society over in the mold of a college campus. The Cathedral is growing ever more radical. In recent months, we have seen the US military embrace wokeness (to use the slang term for the most vibrant and activist form of the Cathedral’s religion). You would think that it makes no sense for the leadership of a racially diverse armed forces to embrace and indoctrinate its officers in a neo-Marxist theory that causes everyone to see everyone else primarily in hostile racial terms, but that is exactly what has happened. In time — and not much time, either — we are going to see young people who were once from families and social classes that once were the most stalwart supporters of the military declining to join the armed forces in which they are taught that they are guilty by virtue of their skin color.

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That’s the Cathedral and its values. The Cathedral has also taken over corporate America, and the professions. I hardly need to elaborate on this further, not for regular readers of this blog. It was a hard knock this past week to see that the US Supreme Court, which some of us had thought would be the last line of defense for anybody traditional in this soft-totalitarian Cathedral theocracy, refused to take on the Gavin Grimm case, and the Barronelle Stutzman case. The Cathedral line in favor of privileging LGBTs over religious people and secular people who don’t accept the full LGBT gospel is hardening.

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I realized over the weekend why I have been so affected by the experience of being here in Hungary these past three months. It has clarified for me the nature of this conflict. First, take a look at this powerful piece by Angela Nagle, writing about the views of Irish intellectual and cultural critic Desmond Fennell.

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What does this have to do with Hungary? Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his government have brought down the wrath of European Union leaders over Hungary’s recent law restricting sex education for children, and information about LGBT presented to children. The prime minister of the Netherlands, in extraordinarily bellicose language, threatened to “bring Hungary to its knees” over the law. I am reliably informed by an American source in a position to know that in Washington, even among conservative elites, Viktor Orban is seen as nothing but a fascist. I have been writing all summer about the radical disjunction between Hungary as it is, and Hungary as described by Western elite discourse (media and otherwise). This is by no means to say that Orban’s government is flawless — it certainly is not; corruption, for example, is a big deal here — but to say that there has to be some reason why Western elites of both the Left and the Right despise Hungary so intensely, and slander it so.

There’s a lesson in all this, I believe, for where conservatives and traditionalists in the West are, and where we are likely to go. I have come to believe that the standard left-liberal and right-liberal critiques of Orban — “Magyar Man Bad” — are just as shallow as the “Orange Man Bad” critique of Donald Trump. I say that as someone who was critical of Trump myself, though I credited him for smashing the complacent GOP establishment. I write this blog post in the spirit of Tucker Carlson’s excellent January 2016 Politico piece titled, “Donald Trump Is Shocking, Vulgar, and Right.”

I’ve been reading lately a 2019 book, The Light That Failed, by Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes. Both men are liberal scholars who undertake to explain why liberalism failed in Central Europe and Russia after the fall of the Cold War. It’s a remarkably insightful book, one that any conservative with an interest in the problem should read, even though its authors are liberal democrats. They write:

A refusal to genuflect before the liberal West has become the hallmark of the illiberal counter-revolution throughout the post-communist world and beyond. Such a reaction cannot be casually dismissed with the trite observation that “blaming the West” is a cheap way for non-Western leaders to avoid taking responsibility for their own failed policies. The story is much more convoluted and compelling than that. It is a story, among other things, of liberalism abandoning pluralism for hegemony. [Emphasis mine — RD]

You would have thought that in any reasonable pluralistic polity, a sovereign nation choosing to restrict what its children can learn about human sexuality would be of little interest to other nations within that polity. After all, Hungary is not France any more than Estonia is England. There is an immense amount of diversity in Europe. But see, the Cathedral’s liberalism — whether in America or in the EU — is not pluralistic, but hegemonic.

Krastev and Holmes (henceforth, “the authors”) point out that after 1989, the West expected Central European countries to imitate them in every way. The authors — who, remember, are liberals — write:

Without pressing the analogy too far, it’s interesting to observe that the style of regime imitation that took hold after 1989 bears an eerie resemblance to Soviet-era elections where voters, overseen by Party officials, pretended to “choose” the only candidates who were running for office.

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The authors explain that the reforms demanded by the West weren’t like “grafting a few foreign elements onto indigenous traditions,” but rather “put inherited identity at risk” and stoked “fears of cultural erasure.” From my perspective, this is what you see when you get over here and start looking more closely at what George Soros and people like him, both within and outside of government, did, and seek to do. And so, as the authors put it:

[P]opulism’s political rise cannot be explained without taking account of widespread resentment at the way (imposed) no-alternative Soviet communism, after 1989, was replaced by (invited) no-alternative Western liberalism.

Here’s something I bet you didn’t know about Viktor Orban. After the 2008 crash, Western governments bailed out banks left and right. When Orban came to power in 2010, he chose not to do that, instead taking the side of hard-pressed Hungarian homeowners who had been allowed to take out home loans in Swiss francs. He and his party passed a law to protect homeowners at the expense of the banks.

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Remember, they wrote this in 2019, but think of this principle applied to now. If you are Viktor Orban, and you look to the West in 2021, you see a United States that is destroying itself with Critical Race Theory wokeness, which is starting to come to Western Europe. You see the Left here in Hungary starting to embrace it (e.g., the Black Lives Matter statue the liberal Budapest city government erected earlier this year), and you know that it will be bad for your country if this poisonous ideology takes root. So you encourage Hungary’s national soccer team not to take the knee before matches.

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And so, the disintegrating West, headed towards shipwreck, is going to bring Hungary to its knees for trying to protect itself.

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The authors go on to say that what it means to be a good Western liberal is changing so fast that people in the East never know for sure what vision of society they are supposed to imitate. Think about what it was like for us Americans. I was born in 1967, and educated by schools, by the media, and by every aspect of culture to believe in Dr. Martin Luther King’s colorblind vision. I took it seriously, and I believed in it, and do believe in it. But now the same liberals who argued for that are now arguing that this vision was wrong — that to truly be against racism, you must train yourself to think in exactly the same categories that white segregationists used prior to the Civil Rights revolution. It makes no sense. You come to understand that you have been conned. Never, ever believe liberals: they will change the rules on you, and blame you for your own confusion.

The authors go on to say that sex education in the schools has been a huge flashpoint of conflict within Central and Eastern European societies. It has to do with parents losing the ability to transmit their values to their children. In the flush of post-1989 enthusiasm, young people didn’t so much rebel against their parents as to feel pity for them, and to stop listening to them. The young took their catechism from the Western cathedral. Sex ed was a neuralgic point of the overall struggle between Central European populists, who believed that the traditions and the national heritage of these countries were in danger of being wiped out by the West. Imagine, then, what Hungarian voters must think when they hear the Dutch prime minister threaten to bring their country to its knees because he knows better what they should be teaching their children than they do.

The authors tell a story about how Viktor Orban, at the time an up-and-coming liberal from the countryside, was publicly humiliated by a well-known liberal MP from Budapest’s urban intelligentsia, who adjusted Orban’s tie at a reception, as if doing a favor for a hick cousin.

They go on to explain Orban’s illiberalism by quoting his criticism that liberalism is “basically indifferent to the history and fate of the nation.” Liberal universalism “destroys solidarity,” Orban believes. (“If everybody is your brother, then you are an only child.”) Orban believes that liberal policies will lead to the dissolution of the Hungarian nation because liberals by nature think of the nation as an impediment to the realization of their ideals.

The authors go on to say that Orban has long campaigned on the abuse of the public patrimony by the regime that governed Hungary after 1989, when Communist insiders used their connections to plunder what was left of the public purse, and left the weak to fend for themselves. This attitude explains Orban’s hostility to the banks after the 2008 crash. “[I]n Central and Eastern Europe, defending private property and capitalism came to mean defending the privileges illicitly acquired by the old communist elites,” they write.

(Readers, did you know any of this context about Orban and other critics of liberalism from Central Europe? Doesn’t it make you wonder what more you’re not being told?)

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What’s preposterous about it? I know these guys are liberals, but what Duda identifies is the difference between soft totalitarianism and hard totalitarianism. In both cases, the Poles don’t get to decide for themselves.

There’s more to the book, but I’ll stop here for today. You don’t have to believe that Viktor Orban or any of these other politicians are saints in order to understand why they believe what they believe — and why people vote for them. The Cathedral did the same thing to Trump and to Trump’s supporters. Yes, there were some Trump voters with disreputable motives, and in any case Trump was by and large not an effective president. But the anti-Trump opposition’s passionate belief in its own righteousness rendered it helpless to understand why so many people hated it, and do hate it still. Trump’s own incompetence made it harder to take that critique seriously.

Trump lost, and most everything he did was wiped away by his successor. Viktor Orban wins — and that is the unforgiveable sin in the eyes of the Cathedral.

Here is the radicalizing thing, though. As you will know if you’ve been reading this blog, Viktor Orban appears to be building a conservative deep state in Hungary. His government has transferred a fortune in public funds and authority over some universities to privately controlled institutions. It is difficult to accept this, at least for me. At the same time, it is impossible for me to look at what has happened in my own country, with the Cathedral now extending its control over every aspect of American life, and to criticize Orban for this. The alternative seems to be surrendering your country and its traditions to the Cathedral, which pretends to be liberal, but which is in fact growing even more authoritarian and intolerant than anything Orban and his party stand for.

It is becoming harder to think of liberalism in the sense we have known it as viable anymore. Me, I would actually prefer to live in a more or less liberal, pluralistic society, where California was free to be California, and Louisiana free to be Louisiana, and so forth. This is not the world we live in.

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The controversy around Viktor Orban is not only about an obstreperous Hungarian politician who doesn’t play well with others. It’s about the future of the West.

UPDATE: To put it succinctly, we might need soft authoritarianism to save us from soft totalitarianism.

#rod dreher #the american conservative #hungary #orbán viktor

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sherrylephotography · 5 years

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Part 1

The Cathedral of Bern - Munster

Bern Minster is a Swiss Reformed cathedral, in the old city of Bern, Switzerland. Built in the Gothic style, its construction started in 1421. Its tower, with a height of 100.6 m, was only completed in 1893. It is the tallest cathedral in Switzerland and is a Cultural Property of National Significance. Wikipedia

We did climb the tower so I have more of the photos of the Bern Cathedral .

Photos from my May 2019 vacation

#wickapedia #snapseed #photographers on tumblr #original photographers on tumblr #Cathedral of Bern #Switzerland #Munster #my photography #travel

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mirrorsofdarkness · 5 years

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Albigensia

“Le trésor cathar.”

The Cathar treasure, that lead to the revitalisation of the gnostic sect. The gnostic sect which just so happened to line up with the atlantean philosophies as the oceanic empire went about reforming its outposts and seizing control of the surrounding landmasses.

When this hidden treasure was discovered by the soldiers laying siege to the southern borders, it was quickly seized upon as a valuable tool. The tomes harmonies rang with the harmonies of some of their martyrs chronicles. When diplomatic envoys came to demand accession of the land as well as the blood price for the insolence of the French monarchies choice to slay the Atlantean soldiers, the tome proved a valuable method for integrating the people with a pre-existing belief structure that worked for both the locals and the overlords.

These days, Albigensia is known for its vineyards, and being one of the major connective hubs from continental europe to Atlantis. The Cathedral of the archbishop of Albi is a sight to behold, as the astronomical organ lit up the cathedral in sorcerous light.

Of course, they are and always have been an Atlantean Colony. Though some local names remain, and the “bonhommes” are still called such, little remains of the original occitanian or even french language. Atlantis binds them with restrictive policies of trade, ensuring that they get veto in any major trade dealings with outside nations. Many of the workers on the vineyards have so called “Swiss keys” implanted, allowing them to harvest quick and hard to ensure the perfect ripeness. These, and cybertech implants are more common in general in Albigensia, due to the prohibition of magitech to citizens of Altantean Viceroys not citizens directly to the Rulers of Atlantis.

#worldbuilding #atlantis reigns #Esoteric mirror #not sure what to call this setting yet #albigensia #Cyberpunk #Magitech

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brookstonalmanac · 5 years

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Holidays 7.25

306 – Constantine I is proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops. 315 – The Arch of Constantine is completed near the Colosseum in Rome to commemorate Constantine I's victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge. 677 – Climax of the Siege of Thessalonica by the Slavs in a three-day assault on the city walls. 864 – The Edict of Pistres of Charles the Bald orders defensive measures against the Vikings. 1137 – Eleanor of Aquitaine married Prince Louis, later King Louis VII of France, at the Cathedral of Saint-André in Bordeaux. 1139 – Battle of Ourique: The Almoravids, led by Ali ibn Yusuf, are defeated by Prince Afonso Henriques who is proclaimed King of Portugal. 1261 – The city of Constantinople is recaptured by Nicaean forces under the command of Alexios Strategopoulos, re-establishing the Byzantine Empire. 1278 – The naval Battle of Algeciras takes place in the context of the Spanish Reconquista resulting in a victory for the Emirate of Granada and the Maranid Dynasty over the Kingdom of Castile. 1467 – The Battle of Molinella: The first battle in Italy in which firearms are used extensively. 1536 – Sebastián de Belalcázar on his search of El Dorado founds the city of Santiago de Cali. 1538 – The city of Guayaquil is founded by the Spanish Conquistador Francisco de Orellana and given the name Muy Noble y Muy Leal Ciudad de Santiago de Guayaquil. 1547 – Henry II of France is crowned. 1554 – Mary I marries Philip II of Spain at Winchester Cathedral. 1567 – Don Diego de Losada founds the city of Santiago de Leon de Caracas, modern-day Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela. 1593 – Henry IV of France publicly converts from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism. 1603 – James VI of Scotland is crowned king of England (James I of England), bringing the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland into personal union. Political union would occur in 1707. 1609 – The English ship Sea Venture, en route to Virginia, is deliberately driven ashore during a storm at Bermuda to prevent its sinking; the survivors go on to found a new colony there. 1693 – Ignacio de Maya founds the Real Santiago de las Sabinas, now known as Sabinas Hidalgo, Nuevo León, Mexico. 1722 – Dummer's War begins along the Maine-Massachusetts border. 1755 – British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council order the deportation of the Acadians. 1759 – French and Indian War: In Western New York, British forces capture Fort Niagara from the French, who subsequently abandon Fort Rouillé. 1783 – American Revolutionary War: The war's last action, the Siege of Cuddalore, is ended by a preliminary peace agreement. 1788 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart completes his Symphony No. 40 in G minor (K550). 1792 – The Brunswick Manifesto is issued to the population of Paris promising vengeance if the French royal family is harmed. 1797 – Horatio Nelson loses more than 300 men and his right arm during the failed conquest attempt of Tenerife (Spain). 1799 – At Abu Qir in Egypt, Napoleon I of France defeats 10,000 Ottomans under Mustafa Pasha. 1814 – War of 1812: An American attack on Canada is repulsed. 1824 – Costa Rica annexes Guanacaste from Nicaragua. 1837 – The first commercial use of an electrical telegraph is successfully demonstrated in London by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone. 1853 – Joaquin Murrieta, the famous Californio bandit known as the "Robin Hood of El Dorado", is killed. 1861 – American Civil War: The United States Congress passes the Crittenden–Johnson Resolution, stating that the war is being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery. 1866 – The United States Congress passes legislation authorizing the rank of General of the Army. Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant becomes the first to be promoted to this rank. 1868 – The Wyoming Territory is established. 1869 – The Japanese daimyōs begin returning their land holdings to the emperor as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms. (Traditional Japanese Date: June 17, 1869). 1894 – The First Sino-Japanese War begins when the Japanese fire upon a Chinese warship. 1898 – In the Puerto Rican Campaign, the United States seizes Puerto Rico from Spain. 1908 – Ajinomoto is founded. Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University discovers that a key ingredient in kombu soup stock is monosodium glutamate (MSG), and patents a process for manufacturing it. 1909 – Louis Blériot makes the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air machine from (Calais to Dover, England, United Kingdom) in 37 minutes. 1915 – RFC Captain Lanoe Hawker becomes the first British pursuit aviator to earn the Victoria Cross. 1917 – Sir Robert Borden introduces the first income tax in Canada as a "temporary" measure (lowest bracket is 4% and highest is 25%). 1925 – Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) is established. 1934 – The Nazis assassinate Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in a failed coup attempt. 1940 – General Henri Guisan orders the Swiss Army to resist German invasion and makes surrender illegal. 1942 – The Norwegian Manifesto calls for nonviolent resistance to the German occupation. 1943 – World War II: Benito Mussolini is forced out of office by the Grand Council of Fascism and is replaced by Pietro Badoglio. 1944 – World War II: Operation Spring is one of the bloodiest days for the First Canadian Army during the war. 1946 – Nuclear weapons testing: Operation Crossroads: An atomic bomb is detonated underwater in the lagoon of Bikini Atoll. 1956 – Forty-five miles south of Nantucket Island, the Italian ocean liner SS Andrea Doria collides with the MS Stockholm in heavy fog and sinks the next day, killing 51. 1957 – The Republic of Tunisia is proclaimed, under President Habib Bourguiba. 1958 – The African Regroupment Party (PRA) holds its first congress in Cotonou. 1961 – Cold War: In a speech John F. Kennedy emphasizes that any attack on Berlin is an attack on NATO. 1965 – Bob Dylan goes electric at the Newport Folk Festival, signaling a major change in folk and rock music. 1969 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon declares the Nixon Doctrine, stating that the United States now expects its Asian allies to take care of their own military defense. This is the start of the "Vietnamization" of the war. 1973 – Soviet Mars 5 space probe is launched. 1976 – Viking program: Viking 1 takes the famous Face on Mars photo. 1978 – Puerto Rican police shoot two nationalists in the Cerro Maravilla murders. 1978 – Birth of Louise Joy Brown, the first human to have been born after conception by in vitro fertilisation, or IVF. 1979 – Another section of the Sinai Peninsula is peacefully returned by Israel to Egypt. 1983 – Black July: Thirty-seven Tamil political prisoners at the Welikada high security prison in Colombo are massacred by the fellow Sinhalese prisoners. 1984 – Salyut 7 cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to perform a space walk. 1993 – Israel launches a massive attack against Lebanon in what the Israelis call Operation Accountability, and the Lebanese call the Seven-Day War. 1993 – The Saint James Church massacre occurs in Kenilworth, Cape Town, South Africa. 1994 – Israel and Jordan sign the Washington Declaration, that formally ends the state of war that had existed between the nations since 1948. 1995 – A gas bottle explodes in Saint Michel station of line B of the RER (Paris regional train network). Eight are killed and 80 wounded. 1996 – In a military coup in Burundi, Pierre Buyoya deposes Sylvestre Ntibantunganya. 2000 – Concorde Air France Flight 4590 crashes at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, killing 113 people. 2007 – Pratibha Patil is sworn in as India's first female president. 2010 – WikiLeaks publishes classified documents about the War in Afghanistan, one of the largest leaks in U.S. military history. 2018 – As-Suwayda attacks: Coordinated attacks occur in Syria.

#Holidays

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geostrip21 · 3 years

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Zurich 1.2

Didn't know I would like Zurich as much as I did. It's small but lively, clean but not neurotic, with good ice cream.

See? I'm smiling. I was especially fascinated by the waterways in & around the town. Lake Zurich is rather small (34 square miles) compared to the Great Lakes in the US (largest is Lake Superior - 37,000 sq. mi. and the smallest - Lake Ontario 7340 sq. mi.) but Lake Zurich seems large when you're at the lakefront.

As I said, the Limmat River flows OUT of Lake Zurich here (in the direction I'm facing). The banks of both the river and lake have charming walkways, with swans... and... my personal favorite -- ducks. I really do like ducks, and it seemed like every urban waterway and large fountain on this trip had ducks. Really, we need more ducks. You don't see them here in California.... maybe out in the country. But I lived in very rural Humboldt county and I don't remember seeing many. (Probably because the local gun yahoos shot them all... #armtheducks)

This walkway is along the Limmat in Old Town. The two steeples are attached to the Grossmunster cathedral. (More on that later - it's very central to Zurich history, and the founding of the Reformation.)

This bridge is across the Limmat in Altstadt (or Old Town). Note the locks attached to the railings. This is a strange new activity in Western Europe, that people do at bridges, rather like the tossing of coins into fountains. Visiting lovers will memorialize their romance by placing a lock on the railings of a bridge, as if to say, our love will lock us together forever, and throw the keys into the water.. This started in Paris, at the Pont Des Arts, but spread. Bridge maintenance workers frown on this habit. In fact they removed large sections of railings there back in 2015. The problem was not contained to Pont des Arts, however. According to one estimate, there were more than more than one million locks on at least 11 bridges and other landmarks, including the Eiffel Tower. Read more on this below.

Farther upstream on the Limmat I came across a piece of the Middle Ages emerging from a time warp. It looked so perfect.

This is what it sounded like. (You need to turn on the audio at the lower right corner of the video.)

The two steeples belong to the Grossmünster church, famous for being the spot where the Swiss Reformed Church began, at the same time as the German Reformation, directed by Martin Luther in Germany. 1519, Huyldrych Zwingli became the Leutpriester (people's priest) of the Grossmünster, where he began to preach ideas on reform of the Catholic Church, including rejection of fasting during Lent, noting corruption in the Catholic hierarchy, promoting clerical marriage, and attacking the use of images in places of worship.

This is a street near trendy Zurich West. At this shop you can get your hair & nails done, as well as get piercing and tattoos. (Actually, I believe this is technically Aussersihl, and the tracks are behind me and the Sihl in front... I think, but it looks just like Zurich West - trendy and old/new.) I did a lot of wandering around Zurich. The variety in architecture was delightful. Lots of bridges and parks and pathways.

Zurich is a transportation hub with train tracks covering huge areas. This picture was taken from a long pedestrian/bicycle bridge which crosses the rail yard. On the right side of this yard is Zurich West, the new name for the Industriel Quartier. It's now the city’s trendy zone, near the Hardbrüke s-bahn rail station between the Limmat River (farther to the right) and these railroad tracks. The former factories and warehouses are turning into apartments, offices and loft space, as well as becoming a center of the city’s nightlife, with clubs, pubs, restaurants, and trendy retail.

Here's the Lyria train network, a subset of the French TGV (Trés Grande Vitesse or Very High Speed) system that reaches into Switzerland. I took it from Zurich though Basel to Paris. Very modern, reasonable, comfortable ... and FAST -- around 300 kmp/h. Next - Arriver au Gare de Lyon...

#zurich #limmat #Badenerstrasse

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psthediscoverers · 4 years

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“In 1515, when the clock in Geneva’s Cathedral of St. Pierre needed repairing, there still was no qualified clockmaker in the city. But soon after 1550, as the persecution of Protestants heater up in France and elsewhere, the clockmakers arrived.”

P. 69

“Just as... the Nazi and Fascist persecutions would make the United States a world center of atomic physics, so independent Geneva... speedily became a world center in clockmaking” due to the Protestant Reformation and Protestants fleeing France, Germany, Italy, and the Low Countries (Benelux).

(And that’s why we think of the Swiss when we think of watches.)

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foreverlenkedtoswitzerland-blog · 7 years

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I cannot believe I am already at the halfway point! I have gotten the opportunity to experience so many incredible things that I would have never dreamed of. I am so unbelievably blessed to be here.

This week we ventured Bern, the capital city of Switzerland. This city holds so much of Switzerland’s rich and vibrant history. We got the opportunity to visit a cathedral that dates back to before The Reformation. We climbed up a cramped, stone spiral staircase that led to the top of the steeple. The view of the city was absolutely breathtaking (despite it being overcast). We also got to tour house of The Swiss Parliament. We toured the two different chambers, and we got to sit in the actual chairs that the representatives of Parliament get to sit in. I don’t know about you, but I thought that was really cool! We also had a good deal of free time to explore the city on our own. As you would expect, we did a bit of shopping and drooling over pastries in the bakery windows. I loved walking around on the cobblestone streets and admiring the beautiful architecture on the buildings (all while avoiding being hit by the street cars racing by).

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anastpaul · 7 years

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Saint of the Day – 11 November – St Martin of Tours (c 316-397) Bishop, Confessor, Miracle-Worker, Apostle of Charity (c 316 at Upper Pannonia (in modern Hungary) – 8 November 397 at Candes, Tours, France of natural causes). By his request, he was buried in the Cemetery of the Poor on 11 November 397. Patronages – • against alcoholism• against impoverishment• against poverty• beggars• cavalry• equestrians• geese• horse men• horses• hotel-keepers• innkeepers• Pontifical Swiss Guards• quartermasters• reformed alcoholics• riders• soldiers• tailors• vintners• wine growers• wine makers• France• 5 dioceses• 31 cities. Attributes – • apparition of Our Saviour• globe of fire• goose• man on horseback sharing his cloak with beggar• man cutting cloak in half• man holding aloft a sword and cloak• alms. His relics rested in the basilica of Tours, a scene of pilgrimages and miracles, until 1562 when the cathedral and relics were destroyed by militant Protestants. Some small fragments on his tomb were found during construction excavation in 1860.

His shrine in France became a famous stopping-point for pilgrims on the road to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. He has become one of the most familiar and recognisable Christian saints, sometimes venerated as a military saint. As he was born in what is now Szombathely, Hungary, spent much of his childhood in Pavia, Italy, and lived most of his adult life in France, he is considered a spiritual bridge across Europe.

His life was recorded by a contemporary, the hagiographer Sulpicius Severus. He is best known for the account of his using his military sword to cut his cloak in two, to give half to a beggar clad only in rags in the depth of winter. Conscripted as a soldier into the Roman army, he found the duty incompatible with the Christian faith he had adopted and became an early conscientious objector.

A conscientious objector who wanted to be a monk; a monk who was maneuvered into being a bishop; a bishop who fought paganism as well as pleaded for mercy to heretics—such was Martin of Tours, one of the most popular of saints and one of the first not to be a martyr.

Born of pagan parents in what is now Hungary and raised in Italy, this son of a veteran was forced at the age of 15 to serve in the army. Martin became a Christian catechumen and was baptised when he was 18. It was said that he lived more like a monk than a soldier. At 23, he refused a war bonus and told his commander: “I have served you as a soldier; now let me serve Christ. Give the bounty to those who are going to fight. But I am a soldier of Christ and it is not lawful for me to fight.” After great difficulties, he was discharged and went to be a disciple of Hilary of Poitiers.

St Martin receives his discharge from the army – Simone Martini

He was ordained an exorcist and worked with great zeal against the Arians. Martin became a monk, living first at Milan and later on a small island. When Hilary was restored to his see following his exile, Martin returned to France and established what may have been the first French monastery near Poitiers. He lived there for 10 years, forming his disciples and preaching throughout the countryside.

The people of Tours demanded that he become their bishop. Martin was drawn to that city by a ruse—the need of a sick person—and was brought to the church, where he reluctantly allowed himself to be consecrated bishop. Some of the consecrating bishops thought his rumpled appearance and unkempt hair indicated that he was not dignified enough for the office.

One of the most famous stories about Martin of Tours occurred when he was still a soldier. One day, it is said, he met a beggar wearing rags. He took his sword and cut his military cloak in half and gave half to the poor man for his warmth. That night, Martin dreamed that Jesus was wearing the half of a cloak he had given away. During the Middle Ages, Martin’s cloak (cappa) became a relic that French kings would take into battle. The person whose job it was to care for the cloak was often a priest and he was called a cappellani. It is from this that the word “chaplain” evolved.

As death approached, Martin’s followers begged him not to leave them. He prayed, “Lord, if your people still need me, I do not refuse the work. Your will be done.”

(via AnaStpaul – Breathing Catholic)

#stmartinoftours #november11stmartinoftours #catholic #catholicism

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180abroad · 5 years

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Day 169: Frankfurt

From a historical and economic perspective, Frankfurt is fascinating. It was one of the largest and most powerful cities in the Holy Roman Empire. It was where emperors were selected by an electoral college, and it was the home of the first trade fairs in Europe. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Frankfurt an epicenter of attempted democratic reform. Today, it remains one of the most important cities in Europe for trade and finance. It is home to the EU's central bank and one of Europe's largest stock exchanges. It's train station and airport are likewise among the busiest in all of Europe.

From a tourist perspective, Frankfurt is a bit odd. Despite being such an important city, the historical tourist quarter is quite small. Unlike Munich and Nuremberg, Frankfurt was rebuilt as a fully modern city after WWII, filled with gridded streets and steel skyscrapers. Just a few blocks around the medieval city hall and cathedral were preserved for posterity. A few hours proved more than enough for us to feel that we had gotten a good taste.

Of course, it probably didn't help that we visited on a Monday, when most of the tourist shops and attractions were closed.

Yeah, we probably could have planned our visit better, but having planned every other part of the trip to the point of exhaustion, we tried to give ourselves the gift of going with the flow for once and just seeing what happened. I have to admit that it didn't come easily to me, and I constantly had to fight a rising frustration that we were missing out on things because we hadn't planned enough. We definitely did miss out on some cool things, but that's bound to happen no matter what.

After a calm hour-and-a-half train ride east from Oberwesel, we arrived at Frankfurt's central station. With plenty of time and very little planned, we decided to buy tickets for the City Sightseeing hop-on hop-off tour buses. It was a lot cheaper than it had been in London, but there was also a lot less to see.

The entire route took less than an hour, and the commentary track wasn't nearly as interesting--a lot of pointing out which banks owned which skyscrapers. More interestingly, we did get to appreciate the city's peculiar love of odd statuary.

Still, even if the bus tour was a little underwhelming, it was a nice way to get our bearings. Plus, it dropped us off right at the entrance to the city's historic core.

The first sight to greet us there was the red-brick Church of Saint Paul. Architecturally, it is interesting for being round rather than cross-shaped. Historically, it is interesting for being the site of Germany's first democratically elected parliament.

In 1848, a wave of democratic revolts surged across Europe from Ireland to Romania. Germany (then a confederation of largely independent states) was caught up as well, and Frankfurt became the epicenter of a movement to unite all of Germany into a single democratic nation. A provisional parliament was set up in the Church of St. Paul, and for a while its success seemed inevitable.

But as it so often happens, forming a government proved much harder than forming a revolution. The monarchs and aristocrats stood aside and bided their time while the provisional parliament endlessly bickered over the details of the proposed constitution. Eventually, the parliament collapsed under the weight of its own frustrations and disillusionment. Two decades later, Germany was instead unified under the autocratic rule of the King Wilhelm I of Prussia and his ruthless chief minister Otto von Bismarck.

The church was the first historic structure in the city to be repaired after WWII, and it was honored as a symbol of Germany's commitment to a democratic future.

Upstairs from the ground-floor museum is the church's main hall, a towering and impressively airy space that is now used for concerts instead of religious services. Along the circular wall hang the flags of Germany's 16 federal states.

Moving further into the old town, we soon reached Römerberg, the old town square. At one end stands the Römer building, which as served as the town hall since 1405. It was also where Holy Roman Emperors celebrated after being coronated at the nearby cathedral. Like everything else here, the Römer was almost entirely rebuilt after WWII. As far as we could tell, they did a great job.

At the center of the square stands a statue of Justice without a blindfold, keeping careful watch over the Römer. At least, it usually does. Today it seemed to have gone on vacation--whether voluntary or not, we couldn't say.

On the ground nearby, I found a bronze memorial for a Nazi book burning that took place in the square in 1933. Around the edges of the plaque reads a quote by the 19th-century German-Jewish poet Heinrich Heine. Roughly translated, it reads: "The burning of books is but foreplay to the burning of people."

I wanted to say something about how chillingly prophetic those words proved to be, but of course they weren't prophetic at all. As we've learned by this point, the Nazis didn't do anything new; they just did it bigger and on camera.

The square was fairly quiet since it was a Monday and most of the tourist shops and exhibitions were closed. After getting a last look around, we headed over the two small blocks to Frankfurt Cathedral.

The cathedral, officially known as the Imperial Cathedral of St. Bartholomew, is a hulking Gothic construction of red stone. Despite the high vaulted ceilings, the atmosphere felt dark and heavy to me. One small but fun design element involved the walls.

See how the walls are made of cleanly cut and squared red stone? Look again.

The walls are actually covered in red plaster and painted with thin red lines to give the illusion of mortared stone. Apparently this was all the rage in medieval German church design.

The church has some beautiful art and altarpieces on display, but the real reason I was so interested to visit was a small room tucked behind a small door in a side chapel, so inconspicuous that I searched up and down the transepts twice before noticing someone going through it.

It was in this small room that the most powerful lords and clergy of the Holy Roman Empire would gather to each time it came to choose a new emperor. Granted, for most of that time it was little more than a rubber stamp to continue the Habsburg dynasty, but still. Imagine if, once in a generation, the governors of all 50 US states gathered to elect a new president for life in a dark little room like this.

Turning south, we walked a couple blocks down the river Main. Walking out onto the 19th-century wrought-iron Eiserner Steg bridge, we were treated to a wonderful view of the city skyline.

The rest of our visit was mostly spent shopping. Jessica had hoped to find a scarf for a somewhat niche German soccer team, but we never did find it. I had better luck at a Samsung store, where I picked up a USB adapter to replace one I'd lost at some point during the previous week. I also made a small detour to look at some pens.

For some reason I was under the impression that Faber-Castell was headquartered in Frankfurt, when actually it is headquartered in a castle just outside of Nuremberg. Still, it was fun to visit this little shop and admire some nice pens. Upstairs, we got to play with a set of watercolor pencils.

Nearby, there was also a broad square dominated by a statue of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who was born in Frankfurt. I'd always just known of Goethe as the guy who wrote Faust, the iconic story of a scholar who sells his soul to the devil for knowledge and power.

In Germany, however, Goethe isn't any mere writer. Imagine Shakespeare and Leonardo da Vinci combined, but an even bigger deal--that's what Goethe is to Germany. Not only is Faust often credited as the greatest thing ever written in the German language, Goethe also dabbled extensively in science and philosophy in addition to writing an overwhelming volume of novels, plays, and poems.

Like Mozart, Goethe was a prodigy and recognized for his genius at a young age. Also like Mozart, Goethe spent pretty much all of his adult life far away from the home city that so proudly claims his legacy.

As we made our way back to the train station, we walked through a few blocks of clean, high-density skyscrapers, a lovely park, and then a grim half-mile of brothels and open-air drug use. There are three parallel streets leading from the train station into downtown Frankfurt, and apparently it makes a big difference which one you choose.

Back at the train station, we picked up a couple bottles of "apple wine," a local specialty for us to enjoy on the train ride back. It was basically a very dry, somewhat bitter cider, much like the cidre sec we had in Normandy.

One last bit of excitement for the day: For the most part, Deutsche Bahn--the German train service--was easily the most reliable of all the ones we used in Europe. Even the Swiss trains let us down by comparison. But as we waited for out train home to leave Frankfurt, the departure time came and went. There was some jolting and screeching, and some lights flickering on and off. And more time went by. Our glasses of apple wine were long finished. Then, a voice on the PA system announced something in German, and everyone bolted off the train. Naturally, we followed.

As it turned out, two cars of the train that needed to be separated had become locked together, and the engineers couldn't get them apart. So the speaker had told us to head over to the next train, which was leaving in just a few minutes--plenty of time for a prompt German traveler. Luckily, we had plenty of prompt German travelers to take our lead from.

Once on the new train, everything was back to clockwork, and we enjoyed a smooth hour and a half ride back to Oberwesel. We didn't get very good seats due to the last minute change. We spent the first twenty minutes or so on fold-down chairs in the bike storage area. The train emptied out quickly enough as we escaped the urban sprawl surrounding Frankfurt, however, and a quiet hour and a half later we were back home.

Overall, I probably wouldn't recommend visiting Frankfurt the way we did, but I'm still glad we went. For anyone interested in visiting Frankfurt, I would recommend either a well-planned day trip that connects its various sights or staying in the city and using it as a base to explore the nearby towns and villages along the Rhine.

#180abroad #oberwesel #germany #frankfurt #travel #history #medieval #architecture

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