My latest poem – based on real events

The Weekend Prior to Thanksgiving 2008

I am thankful for my eyesight.
I am thankful for quick reflexes.
I am thankful for functioning brakes.
I am thankful for wine, though I sometimes drink more than I should.
I am thankful I didn’t drink another glass of wine at my friend’s house.
I am thankful for deer, they are a graceful animal.
I am thankful for cars, though if I walked more, I’d be in better shape.
I am thankful for my friends.

It all began on a Thanksgiving over forty years ago.

Arlo performing his classic song in 2005 (with clips from the movie):

(Not a copyright violation, as it’s on Jackie (Mrs. Arlo) Guthrie’s Youtube)

You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant
Walk right in it’s around the back
just a half a mile from the railroad track

White House Hanuka invitation bears image of White House Christmas tree

The president and the first lady invited leaders of America’s Jewish community for a Hanukkah reception at the White House next month – but raised more than a few eyebrows by putting a picture of a Christmas tree on the invitation.

The message reads that the couple “requests the pleasure of your company at a Hanukkah reception,” written beneath an image of a Clydesdale horse hauling a Christmas fir along the snow-dappled drive to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

(Just in case Gregorian Hanuka isn’t enough)

1877 – Thomas Edison announces the invention of the Phonograph
1920 – Bloody Sunday
1969 – First permanent ARPANET link established (between UCLA and SRI)
1995 – Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 5000 for the first time

1694 – Voltaire born
1920 – Stan Musial born
1945 – Goldie Hawn born

And today is: World Television Day (As set by the UN General Assembly)

Hanuka isn’t going to be celebrated for a month, but today is the day Hanuka would fall on if the Hebrew calendar weren’t used, and instead we used the Gregorian calendar, as the 25th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev in 164 BCE fell on November 21.

Of course, Pope Gregory hadn’t been born yet in 164 BCE. (Jesus hadn’t been born yet.) Not only was there no such thing as the Gregorian calendar, Julius Caesar hadn’t invented the Julian Calendar yet.

Moreover, the Hebrew calendar wasn’t standardized yet. Each Hebrew month began after two people declared they saw the crescent moon. (So two different communities could be slightly off from one another, but each month there was a reboot.)

So November 21 is an estimate. The 25th of Kislev is an estimate too.

My favorite spellings of the word

Since the only proper spelling is with the appropriate Hebrew letters, any transliteration into the alphabet of a different language is personal choice, and should be based phonetically. I have seen others use these spellings – I didn’t invent any of them myself.

1) Hanuka – short, simple, and to the point.
2) Januca – a Spanish spelling. In Spanish, the inital-H sound is spelled with a J – as in Jalapeno.
3) Khanike – “KH” is a far better representation of the hard H sound than “CH”. This spelling also reminds people that vowel sounds aren’t universally agreed upon with Hebrew words.

There are other reasons to celebrate November 21, I am certain. But none could possibly be better than the Gregorian Calendar Hanuka, could it?

On the theory that every Friday there are people desiring a reason other than “it’s Friday” to justify after-work celebrations. Here are some reasons for November 14th:

1922 – the BBC was born. Without the BBC we might not have Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (originally a radio show before it was a book).

1969 – Apollo 12 launched (2nd Manned Mission to the Moon)

1972 – the Dow Jones Industrial Average surpassed 1,000 for the first time. (May it never get that low again.)

Births
Mozart 1719
Sherwood Schwartz – 1916 (Creator of The Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island)
Charles, Prince of Wales – 1948
Condoleeza Rice – 1954

And today is World Diabetes Day

I realize that it has now been revealed that “Palin thinks Africa is a county” is a hoax.

I could continue to believe it to be the truth, and continue saying that it is. There is established precedence for this.

People still insist to this day that Al Gore claimed he invented the internet.

There are also people who believe JFK once said, “I am a Jelly donut.”

Neither of these are true. You can read Gore’s actual quote, which is next to impossible to misinterpret, or read how JFK’s statement was flawless German grammar, by following the links. The Truth is Out There…but people will go on believing what they choose to believe.

But since I hope for Palin to disappear off the national scene — perhaps to run in 2012 or 2016 but to fail in the primaries and then never to be heard from again. Repeating this hoax just keeps her in my mind longer, and in the minds of the five people who read this blog, which is counter productive.

Now what do I do?

Born on November 13, 1850, Robert Louis Stevenson is 158 years old today.

He is best known, perhaps, for his essay on Victor Hugo. Lesser known are such fictional works as Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Schicksalstag is a German word meaning, “Day of Fate.” It is used by Germans to describe November 9. Apparently it was first used by some German historians after WWII, but it picked up in popularity after 1989. There are several major events in German history that occurred on this date, with conflicting emotional baggage. However, when you look at list of events for November 9, you realize this Day of Fate doesn’t stop at Germany’s borders.

Here’s a partial list:
1494 – Medicis assume rule of Florence, Italy
1799 – Napoleon overthrew the French government in the coup d’etat of 18 Brumaire
1918 – Kaiser Wilhelm steps down, and Germany’s Republic begins
1923 – Hitler’s failed Beer Hall Putsch
1938 – Kristallnacht/Pogromnacht – German pogrom viewed as the start of the Holocaust
1953 – Cambodia declares its independence
1989 – Berlin wall comes down

For the past four years I have been quantitatively seeing how the news media have been covering some of these events by searching Google News.

2007 (# of articles that mention each word, or words)

“Berlin Wall” – 848
Kristallnacht – 220
Holocaust 1938 – 99
“Night of Broken Glass” – 51
“Kaiser Wilhelm” – 42
“Beer Hall Putsch” – 40
“World Freedom Day” – 1
“International Day Against Fascism” – 1

2006
Kristallnacht – 474
Berlin Wall – 2130
Holocaust 1938 – 90
Brumaire – 1
Kaiser Wilhelm – 82
Beer Hall Putsch – 80
Pogromnacht – 1
Novemberpogrome – 1
“Night of the Broken Glass” – 2

2005

Kristallnacht: 100
Berlin Wall: 900
Holocaust: 3000
Kaiser Wilhelm: 60
Beer Hall Putsch: 10
18 Brumaire: 1

2004 (15th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall)
1280 – Berlin Wall
56 – Kristallnacht.

As you can probably guess, I’ve been pretty upset that the Berlin Wall has been getting a lot more coverage than Kristallnacht. Though the 4-1 ratio of the last two years was certainly better than the 9-1 ratio of 2005 or the 24-1 ratio of 2004.

So…this year is the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht…any changes?

2008
Limiting results to just entries “in the past week”

Berlin Wall: 1563
Kristallnacht: 1831
Pogromnacht – 1413 (Any duplicates, I wondered…)
Kristallnacth AND Pogromnacht in same article – 52 (so 3210 non-duplicates using both names)
Beer Hall Putsch: 42
Schicksalstag – 35
18 Brumaire – 16
Kaiser Wilhelm – 516
World Freedom Day – 2
International Day Against Fascism – 3

So it appeared…
Every five years, the world will remember Kristallnacht. The other four years, the Berlin Wall will get all the press.

Then something occurred to me. It is possible that in the earlier years of this annual comparison there were a lot more American than European news sources at Google News. And its possible that the balancing out of news coverage is at least partially due to a more diverse news database. I checked the Advanced Search capabilities, and I was allowed to limit my search by country.

USA

Kristallnacht 742
Berlin Wall: 1419
pogromnacht: 0
beer hall putsch: 19
brumaire: 3
World Freedom Day – 1 (whitehouse.gov)
International Day Against Fascism – 0

(sigh.)

Nov 10 – Update

This morning I repeated the search to get any day after reportage, and realized I had conducted the Berlin Wall search in the USA without quotation marks which is unfair, as it would get any article about Berlin that mentioned any wall.

USA
Kristallnacht – 804
Berlin Wall – 833

I’m satisfied with the results this year, let’s see what happens next year when it’s the 20th anniversary for the Berlin Wall.