Star Wars day

[Batalov]

Netflix found a way to celebrate it -- if you had Episode VIII in the queue, you are receiving it today.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by Nick

Today is Remembrance Day here in the Netherlands, with 2 minutes silence at 8pm local time (11 November has no significance here as we were neutral in the First World War).

And tomorrow is Liberation Day!

Happy Liberation Day in advance!

The to-be-actress Audrey Hepburn survived the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, but only just. The story goes that her family resorted to eating tulip bulbs to ward off the hunger pangs. Perhaps that time of privation contributed to her notable slenderness later on. Perhaps her joy at having survived contributed to her "million candlepower smile."

Here in the good ol' USA,the first Saturday in May is Derby Day.

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

The to-be-actress Audrey Hepburn survived the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, but only just. The story goes that her family resorted to eating tulip bulbs to ward off the hunger pangs. Perhaps that time of privation contributed to her notable slenderness later on. Perhaps her joy at having survived contributed to her "million candlepower smile."

Hmm, sounds pretty familiar. Looks like she's a year younger than my Opa, a year older than my Opa's brother, and 6 years older than my Oma, all of whom survived as well (otherwise I wouldn't be here). My Opa has scoliosis which I've been told is a result of malnutrition, though I'm not precisely sure how true that causal relationship is.

(My Opa and Oma later emigrated to the US in 1957.)

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Happy Liberation Day in advance!
...Here in the good ol' USA,the first Saturday in May is Derby Day.

Thank you - and a happy Derby Day!

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Dubslow

Hmm, sounds pretty familiar. Looks like she's a year younger than my Opa, a year older than my Opa's brother, and 6 years older than my Oma, all of whom survived as well (otherwise I wouldn't be here). My Opa has scoliosis which I've been told is a result of malnutrition, though I'm not precisely sure how true that causal relationship is.

(My Opa and Oma later emigrated to the US in 1957.)

Even now, nobody here in the Netherlands ever says that they are hungry.
True hunger is what people in the cities went through in that final winter of the Second World War.
Any peckishness we experience these days in this part of the world is trivial compared to that.

[Uncwilly]

.

[masser]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

.
Attachment 18191

Good grief; is there some kind of weather on Alderaan?

[tServo]

Originally Posted by masser

Good grief; is there some kind of weather on Alderaan?

A high of 10 million degrees with raining Death-Rays and scattered planet fragments.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by Nick

Thank you - and a happy Derby Day!

Thank ye kindly.

[Edit: I just explained to someone about "Star Wars Day." They said that for Derby Day, you can say, "May the horse be with you!"]

It's not only Derby Day, it's Cinco de Mayo! Cinco de Mayo is actually a Mexican holiday, commemorating the Mexican Army's victory over the French Empire at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. This was during the ill-fated attempt by Napoleon III to take advantage of the good ol' USA being occupied with its Civil War, to turn Mexico into a French puppet state. He invited Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph II's younger brother, Archduke Maximilian, to be Emperor of Mexico. Maximilian accepted, to his own misfortune.

Maximilian's fate was sealed when the US Civil War ended, and the good ol' USA let it be known that the Monroe Doctrine was again in full effect. (For the benefit of those not up on their US history arcania, this is an official version of NIMBY, "Not In My Back Yard.") Napoleon III, and the rest of the European leaders, hung poor Maximilian out to dry. His wife Carlota (Charlotte of Belgium) lost her mind while visiting the Pope, part of her European tour trying unsuccessfully to gain support for her husband.

On June 19, 1867, Maximilian was stood against a wall and shot. He is said to have died with dignity, parting his long beard and requesting the firing squad to aim well so they wouldn't spoil it.

I am bemused by the fact that I find him often referred to as "Maximilian I." I had long been taught that you don't refer to a ruler as "I" or "the first" until there comes to be a second ruler of the same name. For example, England has had but one King named John (he ruled from 1199 to 1216), and he is to this day referred to as "King John," not "John I." Similarly, the current Pope is Pope Francis, and he will be so called as long as no other Pope uses the name Francis.

Anyhow, here in the good ol' USA, Cinco de Mayo is basically an excuse to get drunk. I've heard that the poisons of choice are usually beer and Margaritas. For Derby Day, the traditional libation is the mint julep, whose active ingredient is bourbon whiskey. There is also the "Derby Day breakfast," as follows:

Ingredients:
A man
A steak
A dog
A bottle of bourbon whiskey

Instructions:
The man throws the steak to the dog, and drinks the whiskey.

(I can not recommend drinking a whole bottle of bourbon for breakfast. If it's a fifth, or around 750 ml, as "bottle of bourbon" would usually mean, it would either kill you, or make you wish it had.)

With both occasions being on the same day, I guess that here in the good ol' USA, it's going to be STINKO de Mayo!

[kladner]

On June 19, 1867, Maximilian was stood against a wall and shot. He is said to have died with dignity, parting his long beard and requesting the firing squad to aim well so they wouldn't spoil it.

That beard was more important to old Max than life itself. There were supporters who wanted to spirit him away from capture. Unfortunately, the plan involved shaving the beard off. Max refused to cooperate. He felt that, if he were caught, his dignity would be fatally damaged.

Chapultepec is a stunning estate. The craftsmanship of the castle is amazing.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kladner

That beard was more important to old Max than life itself. There were supporters who wanted to spirit him away from capture. Unfortunately, the plan involved shaving the beard off. Max refused to cooperate. He felt that, if he were caught, his dignity would be fatally damaged.

Chapultepec is a stunning estate. The craftsmanship of the castle is amazing.

It is refreshing, in this day and age, to think about someone valuing dignity so highly. It is possible that he didn't really want to go on living anyhow -- after all, he had already been forsaken by his peers back in Europe, and had been deposed. If he had escaped, where would he have gone to live with his shame? Maybe preserving his beard was the among the last remaining bits of his dignity he could hold on to.

I was surprised by the pictures of the hinges. They appear to be mounted with screws rather than nails. I guess wood screws had become sufficiently available by the second half of the Nineteenth Century that, for a "nothing but the best, spare no expense" project, they would use them.

Of course, there was a time when screws were not available for mounting door hinges. And back then (and even into the second half of the Nineteenth Century), nails were not the round "wire nails" we have today. They were "cut nails," and they looked a lot like slender versions of railroad spikes. The nails used to mount door hinges, called "door nails," had to be set specially, because this was one use where you absolutely did not want that nail to pull out. The way they were set was, they were driven completely through the door post, and the protruding end of the nail was bent sideways, and pounded flush with the side of the post. A nail set this way was said to be "dead set," a term still used to mean immovability. I have a sneaking hunch that it is also the origin of the phrase "dead as a doornail," at which Dickens expressed bewilderment at the beginning of A Christmas Carol.