Lloyd Bowers was born in Columbus, Georgia in 1952, graduated from Furman University in 1976, and has lived in Charleston, South Carolina since 2002.
The Results of Polar Bear Research is Lloyd's first novel and was published in 2007. Lloyd's next book, Keep These in the Family, is a collection of twelve stories and was published in 2010.
"I grew up in the South," says Lloyd. "The Southern Appalachians is a sort of fixed foot in my life, and the summer-time is a great time to gravitate unpredictably in social settings."
"Freedom is a Public Utility, published 2014, developed from the discovery of a stash of old family letters, dated 1812 to 1857, mailed to my great-great-grandfather John Siegling, who emigrated from Erfurt, Germany, and settled in Charleston in 1820. That he was en route, or 'unterwegs,' for five years impressed me.
"Divide the Country! was published February, 2020. It reflects my concern about the disunity, and even partisan hatred, that plagues the U.S."
I purchased Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, by Peter Biskind, from a local bookstore, one of the last books that I remember purchasing from a brick-and-mortar bookstore. Since then, I get them almost exclusively from the Internet. I can hardly cruise through Wikipedia or Amazon without wanting to stop and look at the books.
I first read about the "Salzburger Exulanten" in a book titled Evening in the Palace of Reason, by James A. Gaines. Gaines chronicles the history of Prussia's rise to power from the ashes of the Thirty-Years War, through the forward-looking leadership of King Frederick William. The War had caused the destruction of entire cities in Germany during bloody battles and led to atrocities against civilians that rivals anything in the World today. Despite the tremendous losses, relations between Protestant and Catholic leaders remained tense and hostile.
This article in the Washington Post first appeared in my news-feed in 2022, during the middle of President Biden's term of office. The title speaks for itself. The Democratic Party worries about the future of American Democracy, without actually saying outright that the Republican Party will engage in dirty-work in order to take over the government and institute a dictator-for-life, namely Donald Trump.
I can give parents a very good reason for sending their kids to college. You meet a lot of different people there, and they can change your life. The relationships that develop in college, and the influence they have, often linger longer in the memory than the schoolwork does. You will likely never again experience such a variety of people.
This article appeared in the Sunday-edition of the Welt newspaper in Germany, back in the Fall of 2022, not long after the travel restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic had been lifted. The lifting of restrictions could not come soon enough! My last trip to Germany before the Lockdown occurred in May, 2019. I did not get to return to Germany until late August 2021; so more than a two-year gap.
The movie CHARLY came out in 1968, starring Cliff Robertson and Claire Bloom. Ravi Shankar, the Indian sitar-player, provided the soundtrack. It had a high-end, 1960s orientation that allowed it only a short run in theaters, then it disappeared from view. I did not actually see it until the late '70s when the public library in my hometown showed CHARLY during a weekly film program that it hosted. My readers can watch it for free, now, on YouTube.
A widowed friend told me that some kids burglarized her home while she was out of town visiting her children and grandkids. Since her husband's death and her own physical infirmities, she doesn't entertain as often, now. When the police picked up the burglars, they complained that my friend did not have much of value to steal: "She didn't even have a flat-screen TV!"
On November 16, 2023, the engineers of the German Railway Company, die Deutsche Bahn or DB, called a strike. They called for another strike for January 24th to the 29th of 2024. Newspaper reports estimated that the strikes stopped 80 % of rail traffic in Germany. Having to find alternate means of transport cost commuters an estimated billion Euro.
During her years as German Chancellor, Merkel's public activities and demeanor earned her the nickname "Mutti", the informal German term for "Mother"—like calling her "Mama". That makes her a sort of earth-mother figure in German culture. Wikipedia states that Merkel has received at least 21 "Verdienstorden" (recognition of achievement) from different nations, as well as numerous citations from private organizations.
To recap, the Reformation in Germany challenged important presumptions that members of the Western Church had heretofore accepted as sacrosanct. It overturned the authority of the Pope and Church Councils, and established the Bible as the primary interpreter of the Lord's intentions and character.
I have studied the history of Germany in the period leading up the Reformation, and wondered why the Reformation took so long to get rolling? Informed people knew that corruption, nepotism, and greed fed the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church—more or less like the biblical history of the Israelites, or any other great human institution, for that matter: Its leaders progress from exploiting the perks of the office to actually perverting the intentions of that office—just gradually so that no one will notice.
