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Here's an article/book review from the New Yorker about the development of a Gay rights movement in late 19th century Germany that came oh so close to success only to be squashed by the Nazi's at the last moment. Interesting how so many of the different elements of the modern Gay Movement were prefigured over a hundred years earlier. But kind of sad too given what happened in the 1930's. An excerpt from the review: "On August 29, 1867, a forty-two-year-old lawyer named Karl Heinrich Ulrichs went before the Sixth Congress of German Jurists, in Munich, to urge the repeal of laws forbidding sex between men. He faced an audience of more than five hundred distinguished legal figures, and as he walked to the lectern he felt a pang of fear. “There is still time to keep silent,” he later remembered telling himself. “Then there will be an end to all your heart-pounding.” But Ulrichs, who had earlier disclosed his same-sex desires in letters to relatives, did not stop. He told the assembly that people with a “sexual nature opposed to common custom” were being persecuted for impulses that “nature, mysteriously governing and creating, had implanted in them.” Pandemonium erupted, and Ulrichs was forced to cut short his remarks. Still, he had an effect: a few liberal-minded colleagues accepted his notion of an innate gay identity, and a Bavarian official privately confessed to similar yearnings. In a pamphlet titled “Gladius furens,” or “Raging Sword,” Ulrichs wrote, “I am proud that I found the strength to thrust the first lance into the flank of the hydra of public contempt.” ==== I guess I should have noted the book reviewed is Robert Beachy’s “Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity” (Knopf).

What is the modern equivalent of chicken feathers and oil one must use to "consult the Googles"? Best regards, RA1

Engrossing in-depth look at this megaproject. Land of opportunity – and fear – along route of Nicaragua’s giant new canal In an era of breathtaking engineering feats, there is unease about what this mega project will mean for people and their homes, wildlife and ecosystems. Will it bring wealth and growth or confusion and destruction? http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/20/-sp-nicaragua-canal-land-opportunity-fear-route

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/21/travel/world-top-hotels-tripadvisor/index.html No. 1, and 2 others, are in the Maldives. Those butler-serviced huts over clear blue water look awful nice. Found one I've actually stayed at -- the Mandarin Oriental Pudong in Shanghai. http://m.mandarinoriental.com/shanghai/hotel/ At a business conference on the client's nickel, of course. It merits being on the list, I'd say. E.g., instead of a brothel right off the lobby as is the custom in some (upscale!) Chinese hotels, the hookers (all short little southeast Asian women, in deliberate contrast to the tall Chinese women who staff the hotel itself) congregate discreetly but very availably in one section of the hotel's basement bar. Being ever surrounded by a pack of business associates, I never found leisure to engage one of the little vixens.

lookin- You can annoy me anytime. Best regards, RA1

Hive off the ability to annoy others and there goes half your market for recreational marijuana. Or for recreational alcohol. Or, for that matter, recreational anything else.

Here we are nearly 150 years later and the Supreme Court of India just made homosexuality illegal again. "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr.

Best thing to do is google it. Way to much sketchy stuff going on down there than I have the energy to organize in my head. Just for two (and completely disregarding all the odd stuff going on with the proposed canal itself): 1) Only a very small % of the world's shipping won't fit the new Panama Canal lock system set to open late this year or early 2016 which should provide plenty of capacity to cover the next 2 or 3 decades growth in demand. The only result of adding the unneeded capacity in Nicaragua would be a ruinous price war that would bankrupt both canals. 2) All along the Gulf and East coasts, US ports have just spent/are in the process of spending billions of dollars to be able to service the new Panamax size shipping that's been built to take advantage of the new larger locks. It is doubtful, to say the least, that they would be interested in doubling down and investing a like amount to service an entirely hypothetical fleet of Nicaraguamax super ships. PS The new Panamax ships carry roughly 50% more cargo than the old Panamax, dependeing of the type of cargo. That's going to soak up a lot of demand for shipping.

The answer is it won't happen. No wealth, no growth, no destruction, maybe some confusion.