Somusing

Eine Auswahl von Schlagzeilen, die ich heute, den 20. Dezember 2021, in den Nachrichten vom Spiegel (unter www.spiegel.de) gelesen habe: Chile hat jetzt einen »woken« Präsidenten Coronahotspot in Thüringen Wer sind die heimlichen Impf-Champions? Chinesische Influencerin muss 181 Millionen Euro Strafe zahlen Der Grinch der Computersicherheit Debatte über neuen Lockdown Chipmangel in der Industrie Update der Corona-Warn-App: So können Sie Ihre Zertifikate beim Online-Ticketkauf prüfen lassen Games-Empfehlungen: Das sind die Shooter-Highlights des Jahres True-Wireless-Headsets im Test: Klingt gut, oder? Reader der Tafelrunde Bester Sound für die Ohren: Kabellose Gaming Headsets So muss es auch einige Beobachter der englischen Sprache in den Jahren von etwa 1100-1300 getroffen haben, als französische Wörter sich überall und auf Dauer einschleichten!

I came across the term aqua regia while reading, and looked it up. Wikipedia says the term is from Latin for “royal water”, and is also known as aqua regis (Latin, “king’s water”). In modern chemistry it’s known as nitro-hydrochloric acid. It got its name “because it can dissolve the noble metals gold and platinum.” A great story is related there: When Germany invaded Denmark in World War II, Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy dissolved the gold Nobel Prizes of German physicists Max von Laue (1914) and James Franck (1925) in aqua regia to prevent the Nazis from confiscating them. The German government had prohibited Germans from accepting or keeping any Nobel Prize after jailed peace activist Carl von Ossietzky had received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935. De Hevesy placed the resulting solution on a shelf in his laboratory at the Niels Bohr Institute. It was subsequently ignored by the Nazis who thought the jar—one of perhaps hundreds on the shelving—contained common chemicals. Af...

As Erin mentioned in an earlier post, we had a great time visiting our last 1993 mission city of Zwickau and seeing old friends at church and afterward into the early evening! Here are a few photos from that day, starting at the church in Oberplanitz: The kids played didgeridoo and bassoon at the Jähnerts' house: Walking through town we saw some war memorials with Didi & Doreen; Susen, Ines, and Bettina; and Inge Birke: We finished the day off at the Jähnerts' house again with the Ungers: Then took the train home to Dresden. It was great to see everyone again.

Some photos from Dresden's old town in mid-April, from Zwinger through to the Fürstenzug to the Frauenkirche with the cross melted and twisted in the 1945 bombings to the Elbe river:

While in Dresden we took a couple of trips across the Elbe river on the ferry to Schloss Pillnitz . It's a beautiful place and has interesting Chinese-styled ornamentation and artwork. When the river floods, the water comes way up here. You can see the high water marks and various dates, the highest mark having been hit in the 2002 floods, and before that not since 1845: The inner courts have gardens, more palaces, a Japanese camellia tree protected in a glass house in winter, and an "orangery", an indoor tropical garden not pictured here. Erin's brother Colter visited later so some of us went back with him: The local Dresdner are mostly observing a boycott of Schloss Pillnitz because it was always free of charge until recently but now costs a few Euros per person in the off season when we were there, but is more expensive starting in May when the buildings open for visits.

After almost 22 years I returned to my first mission city, Görlitz , on the east border of Germany, with Poland across the Neisse River. I went with Zed and Phin early on a Sunday morning so we could attend church and try to meet up with old friends. That worked out well! I was a little distracted taking it all in and didn't get everyone in photos as I would have liked, but here's what I have. With Br. Rudi Lehmann: With the Maschkes: With Thomas Lehmann: The old church meeting rooms were on the first floor above ground floor here until the mid-1990s. The right half of the building has been renovated, and the left half we used to enter the church rooms from is decaying and locked up. Br. Frank Fuchs drove us here, and afterward he and his wife invited us over for lunch! This building is at Blumenstrasse 2, where we lived as missionaries on the first floor above ground floor on the left. It's nearly unrecognizable after all the renovation that was done. ...

On April 13, Jacob, Lillian, Seth, and I went on a day trip to revisit a place I went on a "preparation day" (free day) as an LDS missionary in Görlitz in fall 1991. We took a train from Dresden to Zittau , in Sachsen's far southeast "Dreiländereck", the "three-country corner" where Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic meet. From there we took the Schmalspurbahn (narrow-gauge train) to Oybin. This railroad has tracks about half as wide as normal, 750 mm = 2 ft 5 1⁄2 in wide compared to standard European & American gauge of 1,435 mm = 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in. And the locomotive is a classic steam-powered one! The wagons are outfitted in Deutsche Reichsbahn style with faux wood paneling, green upholstery, and radiators, just like they were in the Communist East German period. They're small and cute to match the narrow railroad tracks. After arriving in Oybin, they detached the locomotive and filled it up with water again at the Wasserhäuschen (litt...