A Hotel To Remember
You notice, but don't really notice, how imposing building is as you ascend the steps to the front entrance. You enter and approach the front desk and immediately notice the…
Historical White-Washing?
Just south of Dubuque, Iowa on US-52 is Mines of Spain, a state park which, despite driving by innumerable times since first moving to Iowa in 1972, I had never…
Hungarian Revolution Memorial
An unexpected find while walking through Boston's Financial District: a statue commemorating the failed 1956 Hungarian uprising against communist rule. Commissioned by the Hungarian Society of Massachusetts, the statue was…
Book Review: The Transylvania Trilogy
The Transylvania Trilogy, or Erdélyi történet in Hungarian, is, at its essence, a romance novel: boy (Bálint Abády) grows up with girl (Adrienne Uzdy); girl enters loveless marriage; boy expresses…
Book Review: Swastika Night
Swastika Night is yet another World War II alternative history where the Axis Powers - Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire - defeat the Allies and now occupy the defeated…
For massages? Yeah, sure….
Left, a magazine advertisement from the 1950s; right, a storefront in Frankfurt, Germany saying Believe me, it's only for massages. Apparently nothing has changed in seventy years. Despite women's sexual…
Random Learnings #70
The Swiss have guns; the Brits had bows and arrows. The Unlawful Games Act 1541 required males to own bows and arrows - 2 for boys under 17, 4 for…
Ghosts of Radio Shack
After its 2015 and 2017 Chapter 11 bankruptcies and the sale of its intellectual property in November 2020, Radio Shack today is strictly an online retailer. Innumerable articles attempt to…
The World At My Birth
I was born March 1, 1965, so let's see what made the New York Times the following day, March 2, 1965: Australia Punishes Dawn Fraser For Capers as Olympic Swimmer…
Random Learnings #69
Growing up in Iowa, all I knew of Kossuth County was its unusual size: essentially double the size of other counties in the state, it's the reason Iowa has 99…