Sunday Morning Thoughts – Jan 19, 2025

Buckle up everybody

Every single thought that pops into my head is gonna turn into a full-blown rant. This is gonna get rocky. Best hang on to something.

See now I’m sitting here with my fingers on my keyboard unable to type anything – totally blocked.

Let’s start with something catholic churches are good for – acoustics. They have great acoustics, and they are also the perfect places for light shows like this one I enjoyed at the festival of lights in Lucerne. The topic was regeneration and water.

Nowadays we do have the technology and skills to program the show in a way that takes all the architectural features of a church into account and uses them quite effectively.

There, I found a use for a catholic church that isn’t harmful. Unless you have a problem with strobe effects. In that case definitely stay away.

Gorgeous building, no argument there. And not something you’d be allowed to build nowadays.

I was sitting there thinking about what churches used to be way back when. They were a place to congregate, a place of learning, a place of community, a safe place during war, a sacred place. If we pick out a couple of those things like “a place of learning” or “a place of community” we should really have more churches that are museums or that are converted into schools or university lecture halls. I mean, they are not used much during the week anyway and to be honest barely used on a Sunday morning either.

That would be a good way to give back to society. Or convert them into libraries with books that are based on facts rather than folklore. There are already some churches that have been converted into bookshops. A fantastic example of which I visited in Maastricht. I was like “now, we’re talking”.

I can only speak to the Christian faith as that’s the society I grew up in and as such my beef is with all Christian churches. In order of insanity my top three are Catholic, Evangelical and Protestant / Lutheran. The top two might have to be reversed soon. I mean that entire movement of getting women back to household and mom duties (forced mom duties preferably) might actually blow the roof of insanity off.

I know it’s not just a church movement, but it is definitely faith driven. Oh, and if you haven’t seen the Swiss movie The Divine Order – watch it. I think it’s on Netflix.

So, now men have noticed that women can do “their” jobs just as well if not better their frail egos can’t take it and they need to find a way to protect their jobs without actually putting in more of an effort. I mean if they put as much effort into getting better at their jobs as they do getting women out of the work force, they might actually be useful – well, kind of.

And if me saying “men” just triggered you because “not all men” you’re part of the freaking problem. All others will see that frail male egos are feeling threatened by women.

Well, newsflash. Women have always had to reinvent themselves. We do this on a regular basis. It’s part of our DNA. And there’s a group of us Gen X women that are about to rise like phoenixes from the ashes and we’re angry. We’re super angry. We’re ready to fight for our rights. We’re ready to fight to be heard. We’re ready to trample on those frail egos.

Phénix by Julien Menzel (LiLu 2025)

And we do need allies. You know those reasonable men that are out there. I know there’s plenty of you. Best join us. Because a society full of angry women is not one you want to live in. Trust me on that.

I don’t know how my mind jumped to reproductive rights and such. Not a huge leap I guess but it had to do with this picture I took at the festival of lights in Lucerne – for some reason …

Jellyworld by Daniel Kurniczak (LiLu 2025)

You know what’s interesting? Pregnancy is always God’s will and life starts at conception and such. But if people can’t get pregnant that’s not God’s will. Then we turn to *drumroll* … science to try and get pregnant.

Sorry, but you can’t have it both ways. It’s either always God’s will or never. God doesn’t get confused and forget that your main purpose is to procreate. He’s all powerful and all knowing – have you forgotten?

And don’t get me started on limp dick. Sorry to be blunt. And I’m all in favor of helping men out if that’s what’s needed. I just think that the “it’s in God’s plan” folk should be out of luck in this case and look at is as God telling them to stop thinking with their dick or like a dick. Take your pick.

Of course, in this case it’s suddenly not God’s will because it affects their masculinity. And it’s certainly not something everybody is going through and you just need to suck it up …

Oh how I wish as much money was put into researching hormones and menopause as went into developing Viagra.

But don’t you worry, we’ll figure this shit out and come back with a vengeance. Gen X women are a different breed. And you ain’t ready for this. We’re gonna break the system. Step aside baby boomers, it’s our turn.

I hate these labels, but not enough not to use them.

Okay, shifting focus. Did you hear about Denmark offering to buy the US to make it great. Not “again” – just great. They think it could be done by introducing universal health care and a proper education system. Made me laugh.

Other things that made me laugh this week – an American explaining why Americans always say what state they are from instead of just saying I’m from the US when asked abroad. Apparently, it’s because each state is like a separate country. They are all very different and that’s why the state is named and important.

Of course, by doing that you also expect the rest of the world to be familiar with the 50 states of your country. Most educated people probably are, but that’s a different story.

The guy who asked the question was from Australia though and he said he always just says “Australia” and then maybe the closest city if asked. The American who decided to reply completely ignored that fact and went on to explain how the size of the US states means such and such. And he compared it to Europe. Not sure what that had to do with an Australian asking the question.

Maybe look at a map of Australia and check the sizes of their states and possibly also the size of the entire country (spoiler: the US is only 1.27 times bigger than Australia).

Then there were people losing their shit because they had to wait in line at passport control – a very long line. It was the “let’s take our borders back” UK citizens. Surprise! This is what taking your borders back means. Good luck with that.

We’re not in the EU and never were but even Euro-skeptic Switzerland realized that it would be in our own best interest to enter the Schengen agreement. I should really write about Schengen, Maastricht and Strasbourg and their importance in European politics at some point. And yes, I do mean the whole of Europe in this case - geographical AND political Europe.

That’s also the Europe that will meet in Basel in May for the European Song Contest. It’s been a while since we hosted it. The last person to win it for Switzerland before Nemo was Céline Dion in the 1988. Which just reminded me of Céline singing at the Paris Olympics 36 years later. And that brings us nicely to my last picture.

A French bistro doesn’t have to be in France. You can find one in the middle of Lucerne.

I’ll be drinking a lot of tea reading a book under my compfy polar bear blanked.

Happy Sunday everybody.