It's a stormy weekend MKF 3/20/04

[urnofosiris]

It has been storming outside, almost unlike I have ever seen. I have been working in my garden but I finally fled inside for fear that huge tree next door would come crashing down on me. So of course I planted myself in front on my computer and turned on my TV and they are showing a documentary about our former queen Juliana, mother of our current queen Beatrix.



I did a quick search online and as I suspected this means she has died. I must admit to feeling a bit sad, eventhough she was 94 years old and had been on poor health for years. Still, it feels like the end of an era, and I guess it is. She was our queen for 32 years (from 1948-1980) and so much changed in my country during her reign.

She was a kind, open minded and caring lady and she will be missed.



Anyway, this a daily thread, so what are you up to this weekend?

[Darcy]

We had a snowstorm yesterday morning, with significant snowfall - but it warmed up in the afternoon and now there's hardly any snow to be seen. It was very weird having a snowstorm on the last day of official winter, and it was the second day of snow this week! We don't get a lot of snow here, and the TV stations go nuts with "winter storm warnings", most of which turn out to be grossly exaggerated.



Today is laundry and errands day - I don't know how I'll stand the excitement.

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I don't care if it is an orgy of death, there's still such a thing as a napkin! - Willow in "Superstar"

[skittles]

Yes, I saw the news this morning about Juliana, Dr G. She sounds like a wonderful lady and I mean that in the nicest sense of the word.



We had our first spring storms overnight & this morning... great booms & flashes of light, but fortunately, no power outages which are quite quite common here.



Today, I'm off to feed some kitties & get a few shopping errands done... but being gentle to my ankle, which I sprained earlier this week. My, how the bruises travel to the toes!!! The foot is fine & green, but the toes are all colors of the rainbow!! Gravity is working in this part of the world..



Have a warm weekend, kittens!!

skittles



"I'll tell you how the sun rose, --A ribbon at a time." Emily Dickinson

[Gatito Grande]

Ouch, skittles! Keep your multicolored foot out of what are sure to be numerous mud-puddles 'round where you and I live (FYI: my computer had that tell-tale sign---a too small picture on the monitor---saying that I did lose power briefly up here in my neck of the Michigan woods).



Really sorry to hear about the Queen Mother, G, for strictly personal reasons: growing up, having to explain my unusual (for Americans) given name. "Juliana", I'd say "Y'know, like the Queen of the Netherlands?"



GG My name's even spelled the same, w/ one 'n' . . . unlike, say, Julianna Margulies. Go figure, huh? Out

[Warduke]

From Yahoo...

Quote:

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Dutch 'Mother of Nation' Queen Juliana Dies at 94



By Marcel Michelson



AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Queen Juliana, dubbed the "people's queen" of the Netherlands after she helped the country recover from World War II and oversaw the independence of its last remaining colonies, died on Saturday at the age of 94.



The bicycling monarch who broke with convention by shopping at her local supermarket and sending her children to state school died of a lung infection at 5:50 a.m. (0450 GMT) in the Soestdijk palace where she lived most of her life. She had been ill for several years.



Her husband, Prince Bernhard, and three of her four daughters, including Queen Beatrix, were at her bedside when she died. The fourth daughter arrived soon afterwards from the United States.



"The Netherlands has lost its mother," Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said in a televised address.



He said Juliana, who reigned from 1948 until she abdicated in 1980 in favor of Beatrix, was a queen "for the people, not the powerful." Balkenende said she would have become a social worker if she had not been queen.



Juliana Louise Emma Marie Wilhelmina was born in the Hague, the only child of Queen Wilhelmina and Prince Hendrik.



On ascending the throne, she quickly captured hearts at home and abroad as she strove to bring the royal family closer to the people. It is her birthday, on April 30, that is still celebrated as the Queen's Day holiday.



"Together with Prince Bernhard, she worked for the reconstruction of our country after World War II. Supported by her religion, she was an indefatigable campaigner for solidarity, community spirit and human dignity," the prime minister said.



Juliana also kept close ties with former colonies Indonesia and Surinam.



She campaigned for peace and ruffled diplomatic feathers during a speech to the U.S. Congress during the Cold War when she urged more "mutual understanding between nations" -- comments taken as a criticism of the United States.





TRIBUTES



Flags were lowered on official buildings and mourners gathered in the rain outside her palace to lay flowers. A date for the funeral has yet to be set.



Tributes poured in. Trades union leader Lodewijk de Waal described her as a progressive monarch who cared for the weak in society. Leading Roman Catholic cleric, Cardinal Adrianus Simonis, said Juliana was key to the cohesion of the nation.



The Dutch royal family has managed to avoid the scandals that have dogged Britain's royals, but Juliana's reign was not without its problems.



The main upset of her reign was her husband's disgrace in the 1976 Lockheed bribery scandal. Bernhard was forced to relinquish his title of commander of the Dutch armed forces after a government commission found he had solicited bribes from the U.S. plane manufacturer.



An earlier crisis was triggered by Juliana turning to an austere faith healer in her desperate search for a cure for her youngest daughter, born almost totally blind in 1947.



Her husband was said to be unhappy and Juliana was advised in 1956 to ditch the faith healer after press reports of an impending split between the royal couple.



Other royal spats included the decision of her daughter, Irene, to convert to Catholicism to marry a Spanish nobleman and the violent public protests over Beatrix's marriage to Prince Claus, a German who fought briefly in the war.



Juliana looked weak at her last public appearance at the wedding of her grandson, Prince Maurits, in May 1998. Her health worsened after breaking a hip in a fall in the same year.



In one of her last television interviews, Juliana appeared to sum up the style and spirit of her reign when she said: "I have always done my best not to become old-fashioned."

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Firefox: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[walker]

Sorry to hear about the Queen mother. She seemed like a nice lady.



Skittles - Ouch. You should demand some pampering.



It's fairly stormy here in Britain too. An Everton fan got killed outside Leicester City's ground today because the wind blew some debris loose and it hit him.



I met with my ex-girlfriend and her new girlfriend today. It was a heck of a lot better than I thought it would be. I think I made her girlfriend nervous though. She chain smoked the entire time I was there.



Other than that there was the annual challenge of finding a gift for my Mother for Mother's day. Fun.



What did other kittens get their Mum? I've began to limit my hunt to places that I know have a good returns policy. Hence my Mum has a vase from Pier.



Happy mother's day to the kitten's who are mum's.



Edited because I'm an idiot who can't spell.

I'm a foot without a sock without you - Fran Healey, Travis

Edited by: walker at: 3/20/04 1:52 pm

[urnofosiris]

Quote:

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In one of her last television interviews, Juliana appeared to sum up the style and spirit of her reign when she said: "I have always done my best not to become old-fashioned."

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In that same interview she very passionately (she was banging her hand on the armrest of her chair and raising her voice) talked about the misconceptions about her, like people supposedly not being allowed to disagree with her. She catagorically denied that. Of course people could disagree with her, just like she could disagree with others. No problem if one would disagree in a polite manner. She gave some rather amusing examples on how she would disagree politely and then she said 'I would not call someone an ugly idiot' and she would not expect anyone to say that to her when disagreeing, but 'if an old friend were to call me an ugly idiot I'd say ok, but leave the word ugly out of it'.



It does not translate so well and you really had to see it, but it cracked me up. I had not seen that interview before. They have been showing documentaries about her all day and I have seen a lot of new things I had not seen before. Very interesting stuff. Some of it has made me a bit sniffly. They also showed clips from her speech to the US congress in 1952. She made some rather controversial (at the time) statements which did not make our government happy. She spoke her mind which took some guts, even for a queen.



And of course life goes on, I just heard on the news that the wife of her our queen's youngest son (Juliana's grandson) is about to give birth to their second child.

Edited by: DrG at: 3/20/04 3:37 pm