Monday, August 3, 2015

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY star DAKOTA JOHNSON's "cli-fi" movie CHLOE AND THEO to hit theaters in September

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY star DAKOTA JOHNSON's "" movie CHLOE AND THEO to hit theaters in Sept. via .

Jeff Sneider10h
FIFTY SHADES OF GREY star DAKOTA JOHNSON's "cli-fi" movie CHLOE AND THEO to hit theaters in Sept. via .
 
 
 
 
 
FIFTY SHADES OF GREY star DAKOTA JOHNSON's "cli-fi" movie CHLOE AND THEO to debut  in Sept http://wangsuyainterview.blogspot.tw/2015/08/fifty-shades-of-grey-star-dakota.html #clifi #iStandUpForCliFi

Sunday, August 2, 2015

From buzzword to buzzaword: a new word has been coined!

 
 
BUZZAWORD:

DEFINITION: similar to a ''buzzword'' but with more impact, more heft, more ''je ne sais quoi''...

BUZZWORD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzzword

BUZZAWORD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzzaword

A buzzaword is a word or phrase that becomes very popular in the media and often originate in neologisms such as cli-fi.  Buzzawords are buzzwords that help people "think outside the box."

At the Sushi Express restaurant on Saturday afternoon with Lali who took pic with her cellphone

 
我問他為什麼不回美國 他說很多ㄅㄧㄤˋㄅㄧㄤˋㄅㄧㄤˋ他會害怕😂😂😂 10 ♡ 2 ✍Aug 01
 
At the Sushi Express restaurant on Saturday afternoon with Lali who took pic with her cellphone...

Thursday, May 7, 2015

讚! - ''勞力小白兔'' (Taiwan) [FREE STICKER] 展現台語的力與美--【魯力】二字簡單有力:表達【真誠的感謝你】。免費貼圖,希望大家將這個貼圖送給你的好友,並請在FB上幫我按讚 !!




展現台語的力與美--【魯力】二字簡單有力:表達【真誠的感謝你】。免費貼圖,希望大家將這個貼圖送給你的好友,並請在FB上幫我按讚 !!
戀上台灣,戀上「LO LAT」的美國人丹布隆(Dan Bloom),為了讓更多的台灣年青人知道「LO LAT」這個詞,所以特地製作了一個「LO LAT兔」標識。當你/妳想要對妳的朋友說謝謝,感謝他/她的幫忙時,你/妳可以貼上這個「LO LAT兔」!不論是在FBE-mail或任何社群網站都可以免費的使用「LO LAT兔」,它會替你說:「LO LAT LAH」。丹布隆希望年青朋友們能夠多多使用它,並且對它按「讚」。


註:「LO LAT」(或「嚕力」、「*勞力*」、「櫓力」)是「謝謝」的一種台語口語用法,這個口語用法大概開始於 1920

 

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

LO LAT - 展現台語的力與美--【魯力】二字簡單有力:表達【真誠的感謝你】。免費貼圖,希望大家將這個貼圖送給你的好友,並請在FB上幫我按讚 !!

展現台語的力與美--【魯力】二字簡單有力:表達【真誠的感謝你】。免費貼圖,希望大家將這個貼圖送給你的好友,並請在FB上幫我按讚 !!
 
 
戀上台灣,戀上「LO LAT」的美國人丹布隆(Dan Bloom),為了讓更多的台灣年青人知道「LO LAT」這個詞,所以特地製作了一個「LO LAT兔」標識。當你/妳想要對妳的朋友說謝謝,感謝他/她的幫忙時,你/妳可以貼上這個「LO LAT兔」!不論是在FBE-mail或任何社群網站都可以免費的使用「LO LAT兔」,它會替你說:「LO LAT LAH」。丹布隆希望年青朋友們能夠多多使用它,並且對它按「讚」。

 

註:「LO LAT」(或「嚕力」、「勞力」、「櫓力」)是「謝謝」的一種台語口語用法,這個口語用法大概開始於1920年。

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

'Bleisure' portmanteau makes for strange bedfellows

'Bleisure' portmanteau makes for strange bedfellows

San Diego Jewish World humour column

"'Bleisure'? Blah!" -

 
by ''Leinad Moolb''
BLEISURING in DUBAI -- I am not a connoisseur of words by any means, and my working vocabulary is actually quite limited, but everyone once in while as I navigate the internet, I come across new words and terms that give portmanteau words their money's worth.
Case in point: "bleisure," a portmanteau combination word created by putting ''business'' and ''leisure'' into the word blender. I saw the word in a newspaper headline the other day in an English-language newspaper here in Taiwan, where an Associated Press wire service editor used it in a headline about a travel story about tourist spots in Dubai.
The author of the AP article, Aya Batwary, had the good sense *not* to use the ''bleisure" term in her text at all, and never used it at all in her story, *but* one of her supervising editors in New York decided to stick it to readers in the headline I guess.
When I emailed Batwary in Dubai to ask her about this new ungodly portmanteau -- and ''a terrible neologism',' as the Economist magazine in London has called it -- she replied 10 minutes later in internet time: "Hey, take it up with the AP travel editor."
So I did. I am still waiting for the travel editor's reply --  Beth, I think her name is, Beth Harpaz. ***[UPDATE: She did reply to me, two angry emails, in fact! Oops!]
Here's some background  in this portmanfail brouhaha.
The headline in a recent Taipei Times wire story read: "Blissful 'bleisure' - travelers to Dubai are combining business with leisure and soaking up the sun and souq."
And notice that the word "bleisure" was in quotes in the Taipei Times headline, in order to signify to readers that the term was not a real word and was being used with scare quotes surrounding it.




The worldly Yiddish word maven and former New York Times "On Language" columnist Wiliiam Safire -- l'z -- knew a thing or two about how some portmanteau words fly and how some fail, so I decided to channel the Bill Safire spirit and get his take on this "bleisure" nonsense.

Back in the day, I used to be one of Safire's ''Lexographic irregulars," a group of readers who looked up to him for advice and comment, and he even quoted one of my letters to him as part a book he wrote long ago.
When I asked Safire about the misery of a portmanteau fail, by channeling his revered spirit from my home in Taiwan, he replied: "As you know, Dan, portmanteau terms are named after the French suitcase with hinged compartments -- chuckle and snort blended into chortle, breakfast and lunch fused into brunch, and, in our time, broadcast and the World Wide Web morphed into webcast (still capitalized as “Webcast” by the New York Times copy czar)."

I asked Safire what he thought of this hotel and travel industry portmanteau -- "bleisure" -- blending business and leisure into an awkward, ugly, weird new term, he replied: "Some portmanteau words work and work brilliantly, but others fail miserably and fall down hard."
There's more. An editorial writer for the Economist started off an article earlier this year:
"How's this for a terrible neologism: 'bleisure'. It is used to describe what some people claim is a new type of business traveller: one who fits in leisure travel while on the road."
As I surveyed a new generation of Lexographic Irregulars for this column, I received mostly a thumbs down response for "bleisure," even though if you Google it, you will see that it has caught on already with the hotel industry and most likely cannot be stopped now.
"I don’t have time for bleisure when I bravel," quipped a reporter in New York.

"If it's not the worst portmanteau of 2015, at least it's pretty bad," tweeted a Manhattan word maven.
But a hotel industry blog that bills itself as ''insights for the new travel industry professional; get smart about how and why you travel,'' likes the new word and used in a tweet the other day.



​"How could 'personalization' play a key role in bringing 'bleisure' to life?" the Tweet asked the blog's 800,000 Twitter "followers.
"Ever met a 'blurker'?" the spirit of William Safire asked me as this San Diego Jewish World humor column was coming to a close. "That’s boosted from lurker, 'someone who reads a forum conversation but doesn’t contribute,' and in a blargon portmanteau means 'one who reads many blogs but leaves no evidence of himself behind.'''
So what's your take on "bleisure" as a new portmanteau term, dear readers? Does it work for you? Is it a roaring success that will live on for decades in the hotel industry or is it a huge ''portmanfail,'' as some bloggers are already dubbing it.
Me, I'm voting it off the Dubai man-made islands. But what do I know?

=============================


Bleisure - 澳門- 咖啡廳| Facebook

https://zh-tw.facebook.com/BleisureMacao

 評分:4.5 - ‎60 票
Bleisure, 澳門. 4219 個讚· 532 人正在談論這個· 831 個打卡次. Coffee Luvers.

[PDF]The Bleisure Report, 2014 (pdf) - Skift

skift.com/wp-content/.../BGH-Bleisure-Report-2014.pdf

翻譯這個網頁BRIDGESTREET GLOBAL HOSPITALITY. 2. THE BLEISURE REPORT 2014. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. Travel habits. • The majority of annual travel is for leisure, ...

“Bleisure”, really? - The Economist

www.economist.com/blogs/.../mixing-business-and-leisure

翻譯這個網頁2015年3月19日 - HOW'S this for a terrible neologism: “bleisure”. It is a portmanteau of business and leisure, and is used to describe what some people claim is a ...
您已造訪這個網頁 3 次。上次造訪日期:2015/4/30

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「bleisure」的圖片搜尋結果檢舉圖片














更多符合「bleisure」的圖片
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Targeting 'bleisure' business - Hotel News Now

www.hotelnewsnow.com/.../Targeting-bleisure-business

翻譯這個網頁2014年5月19日 - GLOBAL REPORT—Hoteliers are pursuing a new segment of the travel market, known as "bleisure" or, as Avis has dubbed it, "bizcation.

Tweets about #bleisure hashtag on Twitter

https://twitter.com/hashtag/bleisure

翻譯這個網頁The latest and best Tweets on #bleisure. Read what people are saying and join the conversation.

Leonardo | Targeting the New Bleisure (Business and ...

www.leonardo.com/.../targeting-the-new-bleisure-traveler

翻譯這個網頁Tips and tricks to create a targeted digital marketing strategy; How to reach your target audience, including the new Bleisure traveler; Tips to address the blurring ...

bleisure Archives - ATG

allstars24.com/tag/bleisure/

翻譯這個網頁The world of business and leisure travel is merging more and more every day. The shift toward “bleisure” travel has created a new trend with travel warriors, ...

Traveling for Bleisure - InnLink

innlink.com/traveling-for-bleisure-hotel-guests/

翻譯這個網頁The lines between business travel and leisure travel have blurred, resulting in 'bleisure'. Here's how to attract bleisure hotel guests to your property.

Bleisure: For Dubai Biz Travelers, Soak up the Sun and Souq

abcnews.go.com › Travel - 翻譯這個網頁
6 天前 - Travel-Trip-Bleisure Bits-Dubai. Tourists and visitors watch and take photos of the Dubai Fountain in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Monday, ...

Friday, April 17, 2015

Eskimo actor makes 'cli-fi' debut in ''CHLOE AND THEO''

Eskimo actor makes 'cli-fi' debut in "Chloe and Theo" - Film is nominated for best movie, best actor, best actress, best screenplay and best director in the upcoming 2015 CLI FI MOVIE AWARDS in Hollywood (see: korgw101.blogspot.com)
by staff writer and agencies
 
NEW YORK, IN FRONT OF THE UN BUILDING -- Take an engaging and photogenic Inuit man from Canada and put him a 'cli-fi dramatic comedy' that aims to serve as a warning flare about possible global wamring impacts in the far north, and you've got a winner by Hollywood standards.
 
Meet Theo Ikummaq, the Inuit man who plays himself in the movie that is sure to touch millions. Fans are already talking about the film on social media and will soon be lining up to see it when opens this summer.
"Chloe and Theo"is about a man who comes to New York to try to persade the United Nations to do something about global warming before it wipes his people's homes in the far north off the map. Oh, and Dakota Johnson ["50 Shades of Gray"] co-stars are a young woman who wants to help him.
It's a serious movie, with a cli-fi theme and cli-fi message, but it's also billed as a comedy, too. There's some heavy dialogue, some good comic lines, and it's a tear-jerker that will not only touch your heart but may very goad you into action.
At a recent screening of the movie at World Bank function in Washington, Marty Katz, the founder and president of Prospero Pictures and the producer of "Hotel Rwanda," sat in on a panel discussion about the power of cinema to connect with people over serious issues.


Wagner then asked Katz, producer of the award-winning, historical film Hotel Rwanda, to talk about “what is the essence of film that enables one to create these connections and render such powerful responses and can this be applied to the subject of climate change?”

When asked to talk about how a movie like "Chloe and Theo" might connect with viewers on the pressing issue of global warming, the Canadian film maven responded by asking a few questions himself, according to a transcript of the World Bank event.

''Can film be an agent for social change? Can the arts be an agent for social change? Can anything but the arts be an agent for social change?" Katz asked. "I can’t think of how to change people’s perception or behavior except for the arts. That’s why governments who don’t want people’s behavior to be changed sensor the arts."

"I think that film can be a catalyst for those who can be social agents who can affect change in the world and I think that’s a great thing," Katz said.
Later, he tweeted and I saw this on his Twitter feed:


Like "Games of Thrones," this Enza Sands-directed movie is the latest in an expanding genre of films, novels and TV shows that touch on the genre of climate-change fiction, or "cli-fi."
 
While climate change can be a scary and overwhelmingly difficult topic that people want to avoid, as Manjana Milkoreit at Arizona State University has blogged, storytelling in movies like "Chloe and Theo" can bring the harsh realities of climate change home to world audiences -- and world leaders!

The
movie is a keeper. Will it score at the box office? Will it wake people up? Two questions that only time can answer.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Hola! These Spanish guys in GAS really sing in Chinese in Barcelona

 

blog post by Dan Bloom
 
PHOTO OF GAS:

Taiwan -- April 14, 2014 -- Take 6 fun-loving Spanish guys in a homegrown band in Barcelona,

add some lyrics in Chinese to their repertoire, and voila, you've got GAS.

Jordi Riba is the only one who speaks Chinese fluently. He

has studied Chinese at a language school in Spain and does the
translations of the original Spanish lyrics. He also teaches English
and Chinese to kids in his town, as his day job.
To create songs with Chinese lyrics, Jordi transposes the words from

Spanish into a new set of lyrics in roman letters and the band members
sing from those music sheets, according to Salvador Mas, who composes the melodies.

The original lyrics to one of their songs, titled "The Eternal Freshman"
(远的初学者), start off: "Abro los ojos hoy en un lugar que desconozco,
Me lanzaré de nuevo a la vida" (I open my eyes today in a place I
don't know, and I throw myself again into life).
Riba freely translated the lyrics into
Chinese pinyin for the band's music sheet, not word for word, but to
catch the gist or feeling of the words, as: as "wǒ zài yī gè xīn de
dìfāng wǒhěn xiǎng tànsuǒ, nà er yǒu yī xiē xīn de héliú wǒ xiǎng
chàngyóu" (我在一个新的地方我很想探索, 那儿有一些新的河流我想畅游).
"The meaning of that song is about the human desire to find or do something new
every day," Mas told the Taipei Times in a recent email interview. "We wanted to
talk about discovering new things and not being bored in a boring
office job or something every day. Try to change your life to make

your dreams come true, despite of the risk of change."

The band members -- Salvador Mas on guitar, Guillem Oms on guitar,
Jordi Riba as the main vocalist, Marcel Batalle on drums, Oriol
Serrano on keyboard, and
Pepe Zamora on bass --
hatched this dream of singing in Chinese a few years ago, and they
hope to get some gigs in Taiwan and China, if luck is with them and
they catch the attention of music promoters or festival organizers

overseas.
So far they've played more that 20 gigs in Barcelona and Madrid with Chinese lyrics for the Confucius Institute , the Tranlation University and some Chinese New Year parties.
The band plays on.

"There were Taiwanese people in the audience then, and there were also
people from Hong Kong and China," Mas said. "The reaction was
positive, so we want to keep our dream alive."
The bandmates are not about the quit their day jobs anytime soon, but
they plan to keep plugging their dream of performing in Chinese in
Chinese-speaking countries like Taiwan or China.
To make ends meet and
earn a living, the six men in their 30s work at a variety of jobs, Mas
said.
"Jordi teaches English and Chinese to kids here, Pepe is a
sociologist, Guillem is a street musician, Oriol works as a soud
engineer for a music studio, Marcel teaches percussion at a music
school and has a side gig repairing drums, and I am an economist," Mas
said.

When asked how this concept began, Mas said that a good friend came to one of their rehearsal sessions and asked Riba to translate one of their new Spanish songs into Chinese.
Jordi, who has

studied Chinese and teaches it to children in Barcelona, had the idea
one day during a practice session to try to translate some of the
band's original lyrics, which they normally sing in Spanish, into
Chinese and see if they could sing some songs in a foreign language,
just for fun, as a kind of musical experiment.
"We were amazed at the results of the translation, and we liked the
way Chinese words sound when sung, with their tone and melodious
qualities, so we decided to go for it and try to make this project
work," Mas said.
When asked what the band's name means, Mas didn't miss a beat.
"Well, we took the name from the lyrics of a Rolling Stones song,
'Jumping Jack Flash,' you know -- 'I was born in a cross-fire hurricane,
And I howled at my ma in the driving rain,
But it's all right now, in fact, it's a gas!
But it's all right. I'm Jumpin Jack Flash,
It's a gas! gas! gas!'
-- and we all
thought it was funny. And yes we capitalize the name, all three
letters."
For Josh Edbrooke of the British band Transition, which spent time in Taiwan a few years ago and sings some of their in Chinese, too, GAS is worth watching since they care enough about Chinese lyrics to want to create music and songs in that language, he told this reporter.

"My advice to GAS would be to immerse themselves in as much Chinese culture as they can, and not just language," he said. "Food, films, and of course, music will help to enrich their musical style as well as lyrics."

"Back before any Transition members could speak much Chinese, we went to the Spring Scream festival in south Taiwan," he said. "We were inspired by the other bands and the whole indie music scene in Taiwan and this influenced our music a lot, even before we started to write songs in Chinese.
I'd really recommend GAS to look up some Taiwanese indie bands for inspiration, from Tizzy Bac to Fire Ex."

Thursday, April 2, 2015

'Cli-fi' Reaching into Literature Courses in India

 
by staff writer, The Cli-Fi Report
UTTAR PRADESH -- University classrooms around the world are picking up on the ''cli-fi' genre of climate-themed novels and movies, but for the most part all of such courses have only been offered in academic setttings in North America and Europe.
But now India is getting into the act as well, thanks to the pioneering work of Professor T. Ravichandran of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK) in Uttar Pradesh.

Dr. Ravichandran's course, titled "Cli-fi and Cli-flicks,'' is set to begin in late July and consists of 15 modules. covering such topics as eco-fiction, eco-fabulism, and representations of climate change issues in feature films and documentaries.
Aimed at undergraduate students at IITK, the course will be the first of its kind in all of India,
Dr. Ravichandran told me
in a recent email.



"In India, climate change awareness is not as acutely felt as in the U.S. or the U.K," he said. ''My recent research on 'Literature, Technology and Environment: Global and Pedagogical Perspectives,' sponsored by the Fulbright-Nehru Professional and Academic fellowship from USIEF, India, and hosted at Duke University in North Carolina, was a turning point in my career."

Dr Ravichandran said he experienced a paradigm shift in his thinking about the way in which he connects to the natural environment during his fellowship in North Carolina.
When I asked him what he meant, he replied: "It made me to think seriously of my role as a teacher of literature to engineering students. How long will I continue to teach Shakespeare and Shelley and make them aesthetically love the beauty of daffodils or skylarks when in reality they would soon become endangered if climate change goes unchecked?"
To answer his own question, Professor Ravichandran added: "In order to make myself relevant to my existence on this Earth, I thought at least I should cause awareness on climate change in the minds of my students. So that's how I started working on the course. In India, I hope to make this course a successful and effective one."
Since the predominating global concern today is climate change, which obliterates geo-political boundaries and connects humans in search of common solutions, Dr. Ravichandran is appropriating an inter-disciplinary approach for his course, he told me.





"Climate fiction ('cli-fi') and climate films ('cli-flicks') offer an inter-disciplinary study of a looming phenomenon that the humans in the Anthropocene age witness helplessly as if trapped on a sinking ship," he said.


"The real question to be addressed is not, as posed by climate change skeptics, whether this catastrophe is so alarming that humans need to act on it immediately, but how long can humankind afford to remain impervious to something that is so glaring?" he added.

Dr. Ravichandran said that he hopes that havign his students
focus on novels and films in the 'cli-fi' genre will foster a change in mind-set that can open them up to thinking about the sustainable use of scarce resources and ensuring the symbiotic sustenance of the human and the nonhuman on Earth.



Students in the pioneering IITK course will be reading such novels as "Year of the Flood," A Friend of the Earth," and "Flight Behavior."
In additon, movies such as "Interstellar," "Snowpiercer" and "The Day after Tomorrow" will be screened and discussed, Dr. Ravichandran said.

As a reporter from North America who has been closely following the rise of the cli-fi genre in the West, I am glad to see IITK in India offering a course like this to its engineering students.

Call it a meme, a motif, a cultural prism, a buzzword, a PR tool, or a marketing term, -- ''cli-fi'' is here to stay and India has just joined the club.



In fact, with this course, the first of its kind in India, the professor and his students will be making history, and I hope the media in Uttar Pradesh and beyond will pick up this story as a news story in English and Hindi..
Professor Ravichandran's novel course could very well become a role model for other academics in India to follow in the future.

The Window as Mirror - a blog post by Michael Lederer

The Window as Mirror

By Michael Lederer
http://blog.asjournal.org/the-window-as-mirror/
Michael_2
The author reflected in the window of Les Deux Magots café in Paris. – photo credit: Michael Lederer
Look through a window and we see the world outside. Change of focus, and we can see ourselves reflected in that same window.

As an American writer living in Europe, I feel like an astronaut on Apollo 17. While that mission ostensibly was to explore the moon, ironically the greatest benefit gained may have been the famous “Blue Marble” photograph looking back at Earth. For the first time in the long-short arc of human history, we were able to see ourselves in a wider, deeper context. Eensy-weensy we.
Keep your nose touched to the paint and you can’t see what the painting is about. Microscope and telescope for the bigger picture.
Enough metaphors.

I have lived abroad much of my life, wide-eyed, exploring this or that. As an American in Spain, or as an American in Berlin, or as an American in wherever, that key word “American” is always there. As a character in my novel, Cadaqués, points out, “The tree has roots, darling!”

Okay, back to the metaphors.

We live within an M.C. Escher world. Interconnected. What looks like this could well be that. While I was born and grew up in America, my father was born in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, which is now called Zagreb, Croatia. My mother’s parents were born in Stettin, Germany, which is now called Szczecin, Poland. History is a lava lamp. Lines on a map set for a nanosecond, about as solid as smoke. Your own grandparents will tell you that somewhere along the way you, too, were probably hyphenated. Even Native Americans were travelers who happened to get there first.

Whether it was on a canoe across the Bering Strait, the Mayflower from England, a U.S. Liberty Ship in World War II, a raft from Cuba, or crossing the Rio Grande, Americans came from other places. Some of us grab our passports and set out once again, hoping to learn how “they” have influenced us and how “we” have influenced them. Because making the ultimate trip, cradle-to-grave, within the confines of a single national border somehow seems limited. That blue marble is small enough as it is.

And yet…we need identity. We can’t be everything or we wouldn’t be anyone, one of us no different than the next. So we take who we are where we are even as we change. Every expat will understand.

NOTE:

Michael Lederer is an American writer who lives in Berlin, Dubrovnik and Cadaqués. His first novel, Cadaqués, was published in February 2014. He has just written his second novel, Don Quixote Saving America.

Friday, March 27, 2015

''Two Holocaust survivors, one in Ireland, one in NYC, find they were on same train to Bergen-Belsen'' by Frances Mulraney for IRISH CENTRAL

''Two Holocaust survivors, one in Ireland, one in NYC, find they were on same train to Bergen-Belsen'' - http://fw.to/iRAB8gD


6 million shares
/


 


Through an amazing series of events he was reunited with Tomi Reichenal, an Irish citizen who lives in Dublin and is also a Holocaust survivor from the same village in Slovakia.

Reichenal, 79, lectures on the Holocaust to Irish schoolchildren.

They both realized they were very likely on the same cattle car that toook them to a notorious concentration camp.
Kubicek's family was torn apart during WWII as his father failed to secure visas to New York for Peter, his mother and grandmother. His family was split further apart as they were deported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in October 1944 and Peter was consequently moved between a further five camps before his liberation in May 1945.
It was one day in Prague, following his liberation, and suffering from tuberculosis, when his family were reunited by chance when he and his mother, who had also miraculously survived Bergen-Belsen, ran into each other on a busy street. Mother and son successfully communicated with his father and immigrated to America.
But even he is surprised by how quickly the Internet can connect two people.
It's thanks to the internet (and a freelancer reporter in Taiwan) that Peter is now in touch with Tomi Reichenal, a 79-year-old Holocaust survivor in Dublin.

Both men now believe they may have been in the same train car on their horrific journey to the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen.

The man who brought them together was reporter 65 year old Dan Bloom. Instrumental in connecting these two courageous men, Bloom says it is “a story to repair the world,” the kind he’s always looking for.
“I have known Peter [Kubicek] for about ten years as an email friend,” Bloom told IrishCentral. “We have emailed a few times a week for the past 5 years. He has written a memoir of this time in the camps and I have read it and been touched by it.”
Liberation of Belsen Concentration Camp April 1945: Women and children herded together in one of the camp huts. Photo by Imperial War Museum/Public Domain
Liberation of Belsen Concentration Camp April 1945: Women and children herded together in one of the camp huts. Photo by Imperial War Museum/Public Domain

It was during one of their routine email interactions that Kubicek sent Bloom a New York Times article from March 14 – an article featuring Dublin-resident Tomi Reichental. Reichental is a 79-year old retired jeweler who has received much acclaim in Ireland for his talks at schools about his life in the camps.
The New York Times article focused on Reichental’s involvement in the documentary “Close to Evil,” which follows Reichental’s journey as he attempts to contact Hilde Michnia, a 93-year old woman who worked as a SS Nazi guard at Bergen-Belsen.
After reading the article, Kubicek noticed many similarities between Reichental’s youth and his own. “I, too, was born in Slovakia, in a town called Trenčin. I, too, was persecuted as a Jew, when in March, 1939, Slovakia became a quasi-independent Fascist state, firmly allied with Nazi Germany,” he told Bloom.
“I, too, escaped the deportations of Jews in 1942, most of them to their death in Auschwitz,” Kubicek added. “I, too, was finally deported in November, 1944, to Bergen-Belsen — in the first transport that was routed to Germany, rather than to camps in Poland.”


There was one quote of Reichental’s, in particular, that caught Kubicek’s eye. “People tell me I’m the fittest Holocaust survivor alive today.”
In an email to Bloom, Kubicek said, “While Tomi will soon be 80, I have already reached the venerable age of 85. I would only take exception to Tomi’s statement to the NYT reporter in Ireland that he is the fittest Holocaust survivor alive today. Tomi, you have not met me — though I wish we could meet.
Struck by the parallels between these strangers’ lives and a desire to bring them together, on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, Bloom took the story to the San Diego Jewish World, a website where he is a regular contributor. “I loved the two comments (about being the fittest Holocaust survivor)... I had the idea to write a story for the SDJW which would set the stage for a possible reunion of the two men,” says Bloom.
Wishing to contact Reichental in Dublin, Bloom contacted the New York Times to no avail and struggled to see how he would bring the two men together.
But news of Bloom’s interest in the comparison between Reichental and Kubicek had already spread to Dublin – an email from Reichental himself landed in the inbox of San Diego Jewish World.
To Bloom’s delight, Reichental was interested in contacting Kubicek. “I am writing to you as I would like to get the email address of Peter Kubicek...I go sometimes to New York, too, so it might be a possibility to meet Peter some day in person.”
A family portrait - Tomi Reichental on the bottom left. Photo from Tomi Reichental.
A family portrait - Tomi Reichental on the bottom left. Photo from Tomi Reichental.

Bloom connected the two men, and since their initial contact earlier this week, Reichental and Kubicek have continued discussing the similarities of their experience via email.
The more they shared, the more similarities they realized. Kubicek told IrishCentral, “I was very surprised. We compared notes and I suspected that we we were on the same cattle car transport from the Slovak concentration camp of Serad to Bergen-Belsen in November 1944 which was the first transport that went there instead of Poland. He [Reichental] confirmed that that was the one.”
In his email to Kubicek, Reichental states, “It was the 2nd of November when we were deported from Sered and we arrived on the 9th to Bergen Belsen... it was the first transport from Slovakia with children, mothers and the elderly that didn’t go to Birkenau because the gas chambers were blown up by the Germans on the 7th of November due to the advancing Russians towards the camp.
“We were in the cattle cart traveling at the time and must have been diverted to Bergen-Belsen. We lived in block 207.”
A picture Tomi's father carried with him when he was with the Partisans (the resistance) that was all he had to remember them by. Tomi is the little boy, his mother Judith and his brother Miki. Picture from 1941-42. He was 6-7 years old. Photo from Tomi Reichental
A picture Tomi's father carried with him when he was with the Partisans (the resistance) that was all he had to remember them by. Tomi is the little boy, his mother Judith and his brother Miki. Picture from 1941-42. He was 6-7 years old. Photo from Tomi Reichental

Reichental shares Kubicek’s surprise at how quickly the two men were able to connect. “This modern technology – everything is happening very very fast.”
“It’s an amazing thing – the people who were in Bergen-Belsen – it’s an amazing feeling to meet somebody that has that connection. That’s what sort of connected us, there was nothing else, but when you meet someone who has also lived through horrific times. It makes us special and we have an affinity to each other because we were in the same place, which was a horrific experience.”
Reichental now gives talks and lectures on the Holocaust in schools throughout Ireland. He likes to keep a record of all the schools where he has given a talk and, to date, the total stands at 72,000 students.
“It is the last chance. We are the last witnesses to this horrific crime that happened not long ago, and to speak against those people who are trying to deny the Holocaust,” Reichental says. “I spoke directly to 72,000 students here in Ireland and I think they tell their parents and friends and my story reaches hundreds and thousands.
“It is important for me. I owe it to the victims. I lost 35 members of my family and it’s very important that we speak to young people – that they hear the story and tell their children that they met a Holocaust survivor.
It’s not easy – reliving my past – I started to lecture 11 years ago. I didn’t speak about it for 55 years before this and when I first started it was hard.”
Reichental has been highly commended for his role and was last year awarded the International Person of the Year at the Irish People of the Year awards. He is now in such high demand that he is fully booked right up until the end of 2016.


Peter Kubicek has also spoken out about his memories culminating in the publication of his memoirs “Memories of Evil: A World War II Childhood” in 2012. Speaking of his writing, Kubicek feels that it is another experience shared with Reichental – “Tomi mentioned to me that for many years he didn’t talk about it and that is true of many of the rest of us too. They talk now of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and that’s certainly what we were all suffering from. It took us all a long time to live with our memories, but I found that once I started writing it was like I was starting catharsis, like a boulder fell from my back and the process was almost therapeutic.”
Tomi Reichental doesn’t know where this new contact with Peter Kubicek will take him. Bloom talks of the pair meeting and Reichental admits that it may be a possibility. He tells IrishCentral, “Some time – nothing in planning right now but I have a couple of ties in New York and my son lives in the States but in California.”
“I visit him every year so it could happen, that if I really wanted to plan it, that I could meet him in New York...we will let each other know.”
Kubicek is eager for the meeting to happen if possible. “He [Reichental] tells me that he comes occasionally to New York and I would love to host him here. I work in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and I would love to take him for lunch there. My family would to love to meet him. He’s supposed to let me know.”
Of his own contribution to the story, Bloom says, “So many Holocaust stories are sad and tragic, as they need to be, of course, but with Peter and Tomi I want to celebrate humor and warmth and two good men, who led good lives and conquered the evil that once ruled Europe.”

Our end-of-the-world obsession is killing us: Climate denial and the apocalypse, GOP-style

Our end-of-the-world obsession is killing us: Climate denial and the apocalypse, GOP-style

The climate crisis demands collective action, but meets an apocalyptic worldview obsessed with heroes and villains



 
 
Edward L. Rubin is a professor at Vanderbilt University Law School. He is the author of “Soul, Self, and Society: The New Morality and the Modern State,” published by Oxford University Press.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

BLOOMS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! (you have everything to gain by celebrating your famous last name and nothing to lose by celebratng it!)

 
BLOOMS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! ..........(you have everything gain by to celebrating with your famous last name and nothing to lose by exchanging names cards with all the other Blooms on Bloomsyday every year!)
PRESS RELEASE: June 16, 2015

DUBLIN - It's a happy coincidence when one stumbles across another
human being with the same last name, though such happenstance won't be
quite as so significant for the 10,000 people who might one day
descend on Dublin, Ireland, in the future, on some future June 16th -- Bloomsday
around the world -- and all bearing the surname Bloom.

The event, the dreamy brainchild of a semi-goofy semi-retired newspaperman in Taiwan named, get this, Dan Bloom, is aptly titled "Blooms Blooming on Bloomsday," and aims to srpead some good old-fashioned Bloomsday cheer around the world but especially in Dublin.


Actress Claire Bloom and actor Orlando Bloom will be invited to headline
the event at, say, the Dublin Joyce Centre, according to Bloom, a rather creative impresario and event producer who first fell in love with Dublin and James Joyce's ULYSSES when he was a wee bit lad of 16 in Boston, Massachusetts.
Expect a gaggle of Blooms from the
United States, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia who will will also be taking part following a
special tour of several Irish cities and villages, if Bloom's plan bears fruit.
All participants that year named Bloom will be
asked to bring a passport or driver's license as proof of their
identity -- maiden and hyphenated names are fine too, and negotiations are possible for Blooms who longer use the Bloom name but were once Blooms, Bloom says with a wink and a nod.

"This is all for fun," Bloom says. "A novel way to celebrate Bloomsday, if we can pull it off."
"This is certainly a unique event and we wish the Blooms the best of
luck in their attempt to set a record of the most Blooms at one time at a Bloomsday event in Dublin," the editor-in-chief of
Guinness World Records might say at the time the event happens.. Some of his officials will be attending the
event to validate it as a (not so small world) record breaker.
Bloom is looking for help in making this event happen on some future Bloomsday, and he's open to all ideas and opportunities, he says. And he's not kidding.

Two Shoah survivors with parallel stories plan future meeting, having never met before

UPDATE: Peter Kubicek tells this blog:

I look forward to further contact with Tomi Reichental. He tells me that he sometimes visits New York City. My family and I look forward to meeting him on that occasion and taking him for lunch in the Metropolitan Museum’s Trustees Dining Room.

—  Peter Kubicek,, New York.

Shoah survivors with parallel stories plan meeting

http://www.sdjewishworld.com/2015/03/25/shoah-survivors-with-parallel-stories-plan-meeting/

Tomi Reichental in Dublin, 80
and
Peter Kubicek in New York, 85

both from same region of Slovakia before the war.....

THEIR STORY will warm your heART

Shoah survivors with parallel stories plan meeting

http://www.sdjewishworld.com/2015/03/25/shoah-survivors-with-parallel-stories-plan-meeting/