A chilly breeze and an icy handrail to accompany an early morning walk along the Southbank.
Thursday, 5 January 2017
Frosty Morning
A chilly breeze and an icy handrail to accompany an early morning walk along the Southbank.
Wednesday, 4 January 2017
Thursday Arch Series
There was a lot of ice-related stuff going on over New Year's weekend. Once a season, the National Hockey League (which, for some reason, involves two nations, the U.S. and Canada) holds a game outdoors in a baseball or football stadium. It was here this week with our St. Louis Blues (good name for a team) against the rival Chicago Blackhawks. We won, 4 - 1, while 46,000 people in Busch Stadium tried to follow a tiny black dot in the fog.
Other things were going on, too. A temporary ice rink was set up in the square where downtown meets the Arch grounds. I sympathize with the man in the second photo. I've tried three or four times but I cannot ice skate (or ski, play gold or tennis, you name it). My only neuromuscular talent is in my right index finger.
"In Basel I founded the Jewish State."
.
For ABC Wednesday, Z is for Zionism.
While I was volunteering at the monastery in Switzerland, a nun-friend took me to Basel on the train and guided me around the beautiful city for a whole day.
We made it into a kind of Zionist "pilgrimage."
We walked over to the Grand Hotel Les Trois Rois, also known in German as Hotel drei Könige, famous since at least 1681.
This is where Theodor Herzl stayed while he chaired the First Zionist Congress in 1897.
Perhaps this balcony is where he stood when the famous photograph was taken of Herzl gazing over the Rhine and into the future, envisioning a future homeland for the Jewish People.
Indeed, the wide river flows right next to the hotel.
The meetings of the First Zionist Congress took place in the ballroom of the Stadtcasino, another famous building in Basel.
(It is closed for now, undergoing renovations.)
It was here that the Basel Declaration was formulated and Hatikva adopted as the Zionist anthem.
On September 3, 1897, Dr. Theodor Herzl wrote in his journal:
"Were I to sum up the Basel Congress in a word - which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly - it would be this: At Basel I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today l would be greeted by universal laughter. In five years perhaps, and certainly in fifty years, everyone will perceive it."
.
For ABC Wednesday, Z is for Zionism.
While I was volunteering at the monastery in Switzerland, a nun-friend took me to Basel on the train and guided me around the beautiful city for a whole day.
We made it into a kind of Zionist "pilgrimage."
We walked over to the Grand Hotel Les Trois Rois, also known in German as Hotel drei Könige, famous since at least 1681.
This is where Theodor Herzl stayed while he chaired the First Zionist Congress in 1897.
Perhaps this balcony is where he stood when the famous photograph was taken of Herzl gazing over the Rhine and into the future, envisioning a future homeland for the Jewish People.
Indeed, the wide river flows right next to the hotel.
The meetings of the First Zionist Congress took place in the ballroom of the Stadtcasino, another famous building in Basel.
(It is closed for now, undergoing renovations.)
It was here that the Basel Declaration was formulated and Hatikva adopted as the Zionist anthem.
On September 3, 1897, Dr. Theodor Herzl wrote in his journal:
"Were I to sum up the Basel Congress in a word - which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly - it would be this: At Basel I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today l would be greeted by universal laughter. In five years perhaps, and certainly in fifty years, everyone will perceive it."
.
Tuesday, 3 January 2017
Is In The Eye Of The Beholder
One of the area's safest fall-back subjects, the graffiti-permitted section of the floodwall along the Mississippi. It's always changing. Some people like these paintings, others don't, but I think this one is pretty clever.
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