My New Favorite Bus Company

Apparently, this fine transportation company is owned by the Fücker family of Grevenbroich (southwest of Düsseldorf), and has been in operations since 1962.

Hey, you -- stop snickering! Don't THINK I can't hear you!

:-)

-T

Stolpersteine (Stumble Stones)

Here lived Isidor Rothfels
born 1896
deported 1941
to Minsk
? ? ?

The website Geschichtwerkstatt St. Georg (the St. Georg History Workshop) gives a bit more detail:

Lange Reihe 108
Isidor Rothfels
geb. 5.2.1896 in Bebra [a small city south of Kassel, Germany]
am 8.11.1941 deportiert nach Minsk
verschollen [missing]

This is apparently all that's known about Isidor Rothfels: he was born in Bebra, lived on Lange Reihe in a building where the 1000 Töpfe store now stands -- and he was deported to a concentration camp by the Nazis in 1941.

This Stolperstein is one that I've passed dozens of times -- they're all around the city. If you walk at all here in Hamburg, you can't help but 'stumble' over a few of them.

Take a closer look at the next one you pass. Take a picture of it, post it on your blog, find out what you can about the person named on the stone. And remember -- this was a person, just like you and me. He woke up in the morning, had a bite to eat, went to school or work, talked to friends.... Except the person on your Stolperstein was eventually deemed unfit for 1940s German society -- and was shipped off to a concentration camp somewhere in central or eastern Europe, either to be killed or to go 'missing', like Isidor Rothfels.


The BBC has an article in English about the brass plaques, if you'd like to read more about them.

-T

Black Dog-Women

"A new MTV cartoon depicting black women squatting on all fours tethered to leashes and defecating on the floor is drawing fire from several prominent African Americans who call the episode degrading."

What on earth?! Have I been away from the States so long that this type of TV is now acceptable? Well, I guess it IS cable....

I think anyone would be hard-pressed to describe me as a prude. Really, though -- NO ONE should be depicted as a dog-woman, collared and leashed, on all fours, DEFECATING! Especially not a black woman. (Maybe a hot guy in a collar. That could work.... But definitely not a black woman....)

And another thing -- shouldn't the show be called "Where Are My Dogs?" and not "Where My Dogs At?".

For a country that was all up-in-arms about a little shielded nipple being displayed on TV, I'm highly surprised poopin' dog-women was considered a good programming choice. (OK, after looking at that nipple again, I guess I can't call it little!) Again, though -- it IS cable. And you don't need to subscribe to cable if you don't want to. I really don't think the FCC should have much say about what is shown on cable -- but the viewers, who are paying good money for that programming, should let MTV know that this is really too much.

-T