A major American retailer has finally managed to run rings around regulators and public-interest groups and is able to additionally bundle bank-like services for its patrons, many of whom belong to the demographic where they cannot avoid this particular discounter and are not of the means to be courted by other financial institutions.
Provided that nothing's, no sacrifice, forgot, however, I do not worry that there is a great deal to fear in looking forward.
Watching a documentary in search of Germany's most venerable trees—which featured such specimens as this tree in Salz, a community founded by Charlemagne (Karl der Groรe) and a suburb of our fair city, Bad Karma, I learned that there is no known tree to have surpassed the millennium mark (those whom might have been in serious contention were felled by Christian missionaries as pagan idolaltry), although at least one noble tree, per the practise of designating separate districts of forest where no one lives, has its own postal code and receives postcards.
Recently in a special mass celebrated in honour of grandparents and the older generation, Pope Francis condemned the emerging culture of assisted-living, old-folks’ homes as a euphemism for a subtler and accepted form of euthanasia. A society that does not care for its past and respect its forbears, the Pontiff said, has no future, and warned of the poisons of institutionalising isolation, loneliness and neglect. The Papal Emeritus joined Pope Francis during the liturgy, as an example of the wisdom that seniors have to impart for the next generation, adding that he is quite happy that this grandfather figure is also residing in the Vatican.
The Roman work week was not defined by the weekend or a Sabbath but by the late Empire, it was rarity for any professional, labourer or even slave to have to endure any significant stretch of time without a break, with, by then, there being almost parity between days worked and days off due to holy days—and these observations, supplemented by Imperial mandate were not something that one would quietly forgo. More than just pious libations spilt for the departed and one’s particular theophany of household gods, holidays were also public celebrations, featuring games, parades and other spectacles. Festivities were also augmented by spontaneous victory celebrations and by anniversaries and jubilees of much longer intervals. Keeping the tradition of one Sabine man’s absolutions alive, the Romans celebrated what became known as the Secular Games—there being of course nothing secular about them, as we understand the domains of Church and State, but the word rather is the adjectival form of saecularis—something temporal and belonging to an age—whereas God and heavenly matters were considered to be outside of time, at least by medieval theologians.
As Germany and Europe prepare for a series of summits to address the current refugee crisis, this day, twenty-five years ago, saw the resolution of another asylum-campaign, which seems to have a vastly different character from contemporary migration but there may be more similarities than first meet the eye. The Embassy of West German in Prague (das Prager Botschaft), housed in the Baroque Palace Lobkowicz, was the refuge of thousands of East Germans in flight from the oppressive regime—who managed to travel to Czechoslovakia and scale the walls to camp in the compound’s garden.
Overcrowding was becoming problematic as embassy staff tried to care for hundreds seeking sanctuary and climbing the barriers on a daily basis, and the West German government covertly (so as not to appear as a bad host) negotiated with the governments of East Germany and the Soviet Union to work out a deal that eventually granted the refugees safe passage to West Germany, announced by BDR Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher from the balcony of the palace on the evening of 30 September to the encampment below. This first chink in the Iron Curtain was followed and overshadowed by other momentous events in the later in the Autumn, but this stand against the DDR regime is commemorated with a metal sculpture of an East German Trabant by local artist David ฤernรฝ on the embassy grounds.
Other urban centres—perhaps most famously Munich, have neighbourhoods, avenues called Freiheit—what with the Mรผnchener Freiheit though that was something I always understood as Freitzeit, a boulevard to stroll for one’s own leisurely pursuits. The Leipziger Freitheit does not seem to be a particular locale but rather a perennial celebration of the seminal and decisive night of 9 October 1989 (DE/EN), the fortieth anniversary of the establishment of the Deutsche Demokratic Republik, the DDR.
Scant weeks after the first Montagsdemo, held under the auspices and protection of the Nikolaikirche pastors, keeping the assembly peaceful no matter what the authorities tried was presented as something sacrosanct. Security forces were girded for anything, except the prayers for peace and candle-lit vigil of some seventy-thousand souls marching en masse. There was no violent opposition—and it seems that protesters and the police became united in this pact. Numbers grew in the following weeks and the movement spread to other cities, encouraged by their own success and extensive coverage by the Western press.
A month later, the Wall came down and ushered the fall of the regime and German reunification, brought about by the convictions and contagious bravery of the people. Leipzig has been honouring this day—and not just for that quarter of a century that has passed, and includes many stations for reflection with vistas over a city illuminated for the occasion.
The hopeful occasion of the Mauerfall is not remembered, however, on the exact date because of the coincidence of the Schicksalstag, the ninth of November already time-stamped with the abdication of the monarchy near the conclusion of World War I, the coup of Hitler and Kristallnacht and seeming hardly an auspicious day for unity.
