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...

Before getting into the COVID-19 Pandemic, here is a New York Times viewpoint from this morning on how Biden will tax the very rich: The data is a reminder of   just how far   taxes on the wealthy have fallen over the past 70 years. In the decades just after World War II, many corporations paid about half of their profits in federal taxes. (Shareholders, who are disproportionately affluent, effectively pay those taxes). Today, corporate taxes are   only about one-fourth as large , as a share of G.D.P., as they were in the 1950s and ’60s. Also from the NYT: Bill and Melinda Gates are divorcing , raising questions about the future of their philanthropic foundation. I began reading Gates' new book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster . Bill McKibbens' review , where he starts with: First things first — much respect to   Bill Gates   for his membership in the select club of ultrabillionaires not actively attempting to flee Earth and colonize Mars . For the record, here...