Dr. Filomena

As today is the Reformation Day and a day before All Saints Day, one cannot escape pondering over some sdeeper issues. I do not consider myself an atheist, but rather an agnostic. To me, faith is a very personal matter. I figure that whoever truly has faith in her or his deity/deities and the related peaceful ideas and notions, is blessed.

There are some places that give me a special feeling and one of them is undoubtedly the chapel in the Trier Cathedral that holds the alleged holly robe. Though it might be easily mistaken for a fortress, Trier Cathedral (Dom St. Peter) in Germany houses an impressive collection of artworks, architecture and holy relics.

It is also of considerable historical significance, as the oldest church in Germany. Today, Trier Cathedral remains a working Catholic cathedral and an important Catholic shrine that still receives pilgrims.

Christianity first arrived in Trier as early as the late 100s AD, although local legend has it that the faith was established in the first century by a bishop sent by the apostle Peter himself.

The history of Dom St. Peter begins in Roman times, when a church was built by Constantine, the first Christian emperor, over the palace of his mother Helena. Construction began in 326 AD, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his reign (he also began St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome to mark the occasion).

The Empress St. Helena is known for her pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and pious legend has it that she brought back the Holy Robe of Christ from Jerusalem and entrusted it to her son’s new church at Trier. The Holy Robe is the seamless garment said to be worn by Christ during the Crucifixion.

It first makes an appearance in written documents in the 12th century; it was first displayed at the church in the 16th century for a period of 23 days, during which more than 100,000 pilgrims came to venerate it. It has been periodically displayed since then, attracting ever-larger crowds. The last exposition of the relic, for three weeks in 1933, drew 2 million pilgrims. In 1959, the relic was sealed in a splendid shrine in its own chapel, where it remains today.
(Source)

The chapel is closed to the public and the shrine is brought out into the main Cathedral area only once in every few years, so I am grateful to the friend who let us in and allowed us to experience the special energy flowing from the shrine and – at least I thought so – crystals, each of them embedded in a beautifully crafted sculpture.

I hope you will enjoy the VideoCard and that at least some of the atmosphere will shine through.

gutta cavat lapidem, non vi, sed saepe cadendo

Winners of awards given for best innovations by the LJ section of the Slovene Chamber of Commerce.

EDIT: Supplementing the mobile entry

This was posted from the Awards for Innovations in Ljubljana Region for 2006

For the fifth year in a row, the Ljubljana Chamber of Commerce awarded the best innovators. The awards were combined with lectures of Slovenian and foreign experts as well as representatives of foreign Embassies in Slovenia on possible collaboration in promoting innovations and opportunities for penetration of the market of high technology.

One of the awarded innovators was somebody we do indeed know. The man to the far right of the photo received the prize for the mobile technology software application solution that allows real-time tracking via mobile phones. Such as checking out the location of a particular bus in Ljubljana, for example. Want to catch your bus in the morning? The Radio Kaos CEO developed the application thanks to which you’ll know whether you still have time to take a quick shower 😉

Brussels airport

EDIT 29/Oct/07: adding a ‘real’ photo to the mobile entry:

There IS mint in this country! And dr. ARF makes a great mojito! 🙂

EDIT 19 Oct 2007: Adding a photo of the resulting mojito:

To help with the GuessCard 😉 this is how I got here…

Pretty or What

So where am I? 😀

Anyone who’s known me for some time has heard me say those words. Not directed at any particular military force or at soldiers in general. Actually, a more accurate way of putting it would be “I Reject Violence”. Somehow, I’ve never been able to understand how anyone could want to make a career out of learing how to kill other people. Sure, you can say it’s for noble reasons such as defending one’s country. Fine. Chances are I’d pick up a weapon and defend my home and country as well if it were under attack. But if everyone refused to use force against another human, this would be pretty irrelevant. I finally came across a passage that summarizes my thoughts perfectly:

“There is only one circumstance that justifies the use of force: If someone is attacking you, you have a moral obligation to defend yourself. Applying that rule would lead to a surprising conclusion. If all countries upheld the ethic that the only just war – the only legally, morally acceptable use of force – was for defence, then there would be no war. We wouldn’t need military defence. People would use non-violent means of correcting injustices – with protest, with civilian resistance. Paradoxically, if you use armed force only to defend yourself, and if you believe this, what you end up with is a world in which you don’t need it.”

It is sad that I should read it in the context of the author’s obituary. Dr. Randall (“Randy”)Caroline Forsberg, the executive director of the Institute for Defense & Disarmament Studies, a Cambridge-based think tank and the Chair of Political Science at the City College of New York, passed away at age 64 a week ago. She launched a movement with a profound impact on international relations in the 1980s. As a graduate student at MIT in 1980, Randall Forsberg started the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign at a time when the Reagan administration was threatening nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Recognizing that the division among peace groups rendered them ineffectual, she called on them to unite behind a proposal for a U.S-Soviet agreement to halt the testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons. When they proved enthusiastic, she began circulating a “Call to Halt the Nuclear Arms Race.”

The Freeze campaign made remarkable progress. Holding its first national conference in March 1981, the Freeze began organizing all across the country. On June 12, 1982, when peace groups sponsored an antinuclear demonstration in New York City around the theme of “Freeze the Arms Race — Fund Human Needs,” it escalated into the biggest U.S. political demonstration thus far, with nearly a million participants. Reaganites did their best to discredit and destroy it, but on the other hand in 1984, the Freeze became part of the Democratic Party’s campaign platform.

On the defensive, the Reagan administration was forced to modify its policies and the President endorsed the “zero option,” a proposal to remove all intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Europe. Furthermore, in April 1982, shortly after the Freeze resolution was introduced in Congress, Reagan began declaring publicly that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” He added: “To those who protest against nuclear war, I can only say: ‘I’m with you!”
(Source)

Dialog International puts it, “the activities of Dr. Forsberg and people like her are ridiculed. We are closer now to a nuclear conflict – this time with Iran – than we have been for nearly two decades. We will miss Randall Forsberg’s quiet voice of reason. Her message lives on, and the planet cannot afford not to heed it.”

May she rest in peace.

Peace.

Global warming, my throat!

I am stuck at home with a cold due to a bad case of summer-nostalgia (i.e. not dressing warmly enough).

On the other hand, I do remember always having to wear heavy winter coats on All Saints’ Day when accompanying my Grandfather to Urh hill where annual commemorations were held for the hundreds of people tortured and executed by the collaborationist “Home Guard” during WWII, among them his classmate who’d been dragged to Urh straight from the classroom at the University.

Snowflakes were usually landing on fur coats while we were lighting candles and listening to the choir singing. Cannon fire added to the cold as far as I was concerned. Afterwards, we’d always take a walk on the frozen paths to see the trees still struggling to finally hide away the tell-tale bits of iron by swallowing them quietly into their trunks. Then, we’d visit the exhibition of extensive photographic material on the events taking place at Urh. Incidentally, since the ownership of the Church of St. Urh, the place of conception of the “white guard” armed forces and their military stronghold where the atrocities were being committed has been restored to the Roman Catholic Church, the exhibition has been hidden away in Ljubljana City Museum‘s basement.

Well I guess my line of thought stranded just a tiny bit 😉 I’ll blame Michael who posted some photos of snowed-in Rogla today. Hey, it’s a good thing that Slovenians cite Alpine skiing as our national sport. Do you suppose the mild winters promoting soccer instead of skiing may have changed the national character a bit? Humm..

So much for today’s rambling. Must get back to work. Albeit from home 😉

Speaking of work… Congratulations to Fetalij on his first full-time “regular employment” job! If you read Pengovsky’s explanation of how Slovenian employers (ok, and students) are abusing the incentive system, oh and actually his today’s post as well, you’ll realize that securing a regular job must have been no small feat! 🙂

SG / Stomach Guidance

WARNING: do not scroll down if you’ve eaten during the last 12 hours or are planning to satisfy your hunger in the next 12.

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Hey, you have been given a fair warning.