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German Verse by Ludwig Uhland

In the original German with a
line-by-line prose translation in English

Frühlingsglaube	Faith in Spring
von Ludwig Uhland	Prose translation by Hyde Flippo
Die linden Lüfte sind erwacht,	The gentle winds are awakened,
Sie säuseln und wehen Tag und Nacht,	They murmur and waft day and night,
Sie schaffen an allen Enden.	They create in every corner.
O frischer Duft, o neuer Klang!	Oh fresh scent, oh new sound!
Nun, armes Herze, sei nicht bang!	Now, poor dear [heart], fear not!
Nun muss sich alles, alles wenden.	Now everything, everything must change.
Die Welt wird schöner mit jedem Tag,	The world becomes more beautiful with each day,
Man weiß nicht, was noch werden mag,	One does not know what may yet happen,
Das Blühen will nicht enden.	The blooming doesn’t want to end.
Es blüht das fernste, tiefste Tal:	The farthest, deepest valley blooms:

GMO-OMG

Jeremy Seifert (2013)

Film Review

GMO-OMG is an excellent first documentary by a young father on a quest to understand the science of GMO technology and its impact on the environment and human health. The film starts by focusing on the general ignorance of the American public about GMOs. This contrasts markedly with other countries, where popular pressure has led many governments to ban GMOs.

What filmmaker Jeremy Seifert describes, in essence, is the systematic hijacking and poisoning of the US food supply by three companies (DuPont, Monsanto and Syngenta), all without the knowledge of the American people. At present 85% of all corn grown in the US is genetically modified, 91% of all soy and 90% of all beet sugar. In addition, most non-organic meat and dairy products come from animals fed on GMO corn and/or soy.

Seifert first learned about the potential dangers of GMOs due to…

On our trip to Berlin in June last year,  we had the opportunity to vote for the federal election at the Australian Embassy in the centre of Berlin.

In Berlin, you can find statues of the Berlin emblem, the Berlin Bear, everywhere in all different disguises. We even found one inside the embassy.

The Berlin Bear greets little Aussie Lucas at the Australian embassy.

But there was a kangaroo too. It looked a bit on the “dry” side in a Berlin court yard.

“Skippy” the Bush-Kangaroo hiding in a backyard in Berlin on a diplomatic mission

In the next picture, you see indeed some Aussies marking the ballot papers. The children thought we went there for a scribble session and Lucas wanted to have a pencil and a piece of paper too.  This is election Australian style. The voting papers are not marked in secret nor are there any cabins where you can hide what you…

The village school in Lichtenow had only one teacher. That was Herr Grosskreuz. His wife, Frau Grosskreuz, came to the school on Wednesday afternoons to teach the girls needlework. Under her guidance I learned to knit socks with five needles. I also learned how to mend socks. Mending socks was called ‘stopfen’. I was taught, how to fill in a hole with a beautiful woven pattern. I probably could still do this kind of work today, only these days one hardly ever finds any holes in socks: It shows how the quality of socks changed over the years!

Every day, including Saturdays, school finished at lunch-time. The only afternoon session for girls was Wednesdays. I did not mind having to go back to school after lunch on that day. I often arrived early in Lichtenow for the afternoon class, stopping at the teacher’s house on the way, where I was…

We stayed at Bulli Beach for two nights only, namely Friday night and Saturday night. Sunday morning we went back home again. On Sunday morning it was a bit cloudy at first.  We were able to take lots of pictures of the sun rising. Here are some of them.

Sunday morning we had a visitor for breakfast.

We went for an early morning walk on Saturday.

I’ll tell you a story..A story of two lovers of vastly different lifestyles, of an age when one would never expect such a event to ever again enter one’s life. Our two lovers, for that is what they did become and they did forge a new life together for the rest of their lives..were in their mid fifties, neither were of what we would call ; “The beautiful people”…nor given to extravagant lifestyles…in short  : Plain, everyday people.

I knew them well..I am a builder. I built the house for the people in this story a long, long time ago, and that building over several months allowed me to learn about the personalities of my customers. I lived in the district as I built the house, so I also was able to study other people and trades as they came and went on the farm site. I met and was …

 I think what Henry George wrote in his book “Progress and Poverty” more than one hundred years ago still applies very much to our society today. What do you think, are changes in the distribution of wealth and power possible without major upheavals?

 The following is Chapter 42 of “Progress and Poverty” by Henry George, saying How Modern Civilization May Decline:

OUR CONCLUSIONS about the law of human progress agree completely with our previous conclusions about the laws of political economy. They also show that making land common property — by taxing its value — would give an enormous boost to civilization. Furthermore, unless we do so, we will regress.

Every previous civilization has been destroyed by the unequal distribution of wealth and power. I have traced this tendency to its cause — and provided a simple way to remove it. I will now show how, if this is not done…