First of all, there is no connection between Sea Asparagus and Death.  These are two different subjects.  The first has to do with an alert about one of my postings that failed to be published, but is now available.  Secondly, maybe President Donald Trump's various threats are working.  From the  New York Times  this morning: Since taking office, Trump has told several nations he would tax imports from their countries if they didn’t do what he wants. He said he would put a 25 percent tariff on products from Canada and Mexico and a 10 percent tariff on products from China  unless those countries stopped flows of drugs and migrants into the United States . He has also said he would put tariffs on Russia for waging war in Ukraine and on Denmark if it refused to cede the territory of Greenland. Colombia’s quick capitulation ( about accepting back illegal migrants)  this weekend may embolden Trump, raising questions for the rest of the world abo...

I decided to skip summarizing our city stops on our 60-day journey.  You can read those postings at  Seattle ,  Chihuly Museum ,  Amsterdam  and  Zurich. As would be expected,  Time' s  2024 Person of the Year will be Donald Trump .   Is it  because he was the most fabulous individual of the year? Nope.  To quote. A person, group, idea, or object that "for better or for worse ... has done the most to influence the events of the year". [ 2 ] Time   points out that controversial figures such as   Adolf Hitler (1938);   Joseph Stalin   (1939 and 1942);   Nikita Khrushchev   (1957); and   Ayatollah Khomeini (1979) have also been granted the title for their impact on events. [ 16 ] Here, read the  Time  2January1939  article about Adolf Hitler .  Turns out that the just-elected president of the USA is now ALWAYS the Person of the Year. Other noteworthy selections. The first...

What is an ultimate solution? From the  Collins Dictionary . A   solution   to   a   problem   or   difficult   situation is a way of   dealing   with it so that the   difficulty   is removed.     Webster  links the final solution to the Nazi program for the extermination of all Jews in Europe. What was the ultimate/final solution for Adolf Hitler?  If you feel he is a danger, then you find a way to eliminate him.  Can you believe historians have uncovered  42 ultimate solution plots ? The first was in 1932 when poison was used in the Hotel Kaiserhof in Berlin.  He happened to be a vegetarian, so was not much affected. You can read about the  other 40 , but the final attempt was led by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg on 20July1944. You might have seen the 2008 film  Valkyrie , with Tom Cruise as Stauffenberg.  They looked alike. All attempts failed.  Stauffenberg was execute...

 I won't say anything more than to cheer that the major hostage swap in the Hamas-Israel War went well today.   You can read the article . Or  watch a video . Today, all about the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.  I've been here at least a dozen times over the years.   Here is  one stop I made a decade ago , another two years later to give a talk at  Hiroshima University , and third  a  few years later in 2017 to give a talk at Hiroshima University.  where during a visit to Shukkeien for cherry blossoms a bluish-black koi ate Pearl's ash capsule. Were the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the two worst war crimes ever perpetrated in history?  Well,  a lot died : The “low” estimates are those derived from the estimates of the 1940s: around 70,000 dead at Hiroshima, and around 40,000 dead at Nagasaki, for 110,000 total dead. The “high” estimates are those that derive from the 1977 re-estimation: around 140,000 dead at Hi...