Whether a person can be a nation’s peculiarity really is a question here because Pierre Vogel until now had not too much influence. He’s rather an oddball. But he also is an instructive example! Pierre Vogel was raised Protestant, attended a Catholic school, and then began a career as professional boxer in 2000. He in […]

Twice did I already travel through Bulgaria. The first time was due to a miscalculation. I knew a Pole, who carried a torch for Bulgaria. So when I visited Hong-Kong, I decided that I would, on my way back, continue the experiment about astrological worldlines in Bulgaria because the distance between Hong-Kong and Bulgaria is […]

To the authors of the Chūzan Seikan (中山世鑑) had the concept of the Mandate of Heaven been known. This is self-explaining considering the young age of this oldest Okinawan “history book”. So during the reign of King Gihon, which was from 1248 until 1259, several disasters occurred, including famines, epidemics, and devastating typhoons. King Gihon […]

Albeit Wokeness was never about fighting discrimination and hence never necessary, character designs for fictional stories always had been influenced by the circumstances of their time. So were heroines and superheroines possible since the 1950s, which coincides with the silver age of comics. Most superheroines however have rather supporting roles, while Wonder Woman was the […]

After also Martin Armstrong confirmed the rumor, I had to look up this news on a serious news portal. Albania’s prime minister Edi Rama picked Diella as a minister in his cabinet. The name Diella is derived from Diellë, the Albanian word for Sun, and it’s the name of an “artificially intelligent” digital assistant, that […]

Martin Armstrong wrote: “Mass deportation is the only way to prevent the United States from becoming Europe. Import the third world and you become the third world.” I did learn very much from his blog, in particular about history and about the legal system of the USA, so I appreciate his blog. But statements like the […]

I previously wrote that Liú Dékuān (劉 德寛) became a disciple of Chéng Tínghuá (程 廷華) and learnt bāguà-zhǎng (八卦掌) from him. Yet as I meanwhile learnt, Chéng Tínghuá (程 廷華) refused to get credited with teaching bāguà-zhǎng (八卦掌) to Liú Dékuān (劉 德寛). The latter instead shall have learnt this martial art directly from […]

The second of the Shōtō nijū-kun (松濤二十訓) or the twenty precepts of grand-master Funakoshi Gichin (船越 義珍) is Hitotsu, karate-ni sente nashi (一、空手に先手なし) and usually is translated as “(First,) There is no first strike in karate”. But Jesse Enkamp translates it as “There is no first attack against/towards Karate” and even has the audacity to […]

This strange title, ‘An Interview with God’, is the title of a movie, which I recently watched. Well, I watched only parts of it and not because I would have expected it to be interesting. I only wanted to know what ideas about God this movie transports. They weren’t too bad, but also not extraordinary […]

The zodiac signs Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius traditionally also represent the Four Elements. All twelve zodiac signs belong to certain Elements, but somehow the fix signs got chosen to represent the Four Elements as such. This tradition doesn’t seem to be very useful. But it facilitates to categorize elemental magic as well as superpowers. […]