Leopold Hawelka, luminary of Viennese cafe culture, dies aged 100

By: Vickie J. Rubinson

Andy Warhol stopped by for a coffee. So did princes, paupers, playwrights, poets and untold thousands for whom a visit to Vienna was unthinkable without a cup served by the bow-tied little man with the perpetual dancing smile.

In this city of more than 1,900 cafes, Leopold Hawelka was an icon, as much part of Cafe Hawelka as its tables--scarred by burned-out cigarettes, their marble tops worn smooth by the elbows of four generations. He served tourists, the rich and the famous, and the neediest of the needy--the ragged Viennese masses who crowded his establishment over a free glass of water to escape the cold of their bombed-out city after the second world war.

Hawelka's daughter, Herta, said he died in his sleep and "without pain" on Thursday aged 100, leaving behind a legacy as intimately linked with the city as any of its palaces or art collections.

Today--as it was generations ago--tuxedoed waiters flit around tables, precariously balancing countless Viennese coffee varieties and trademark yeast dumpling on silver trays. Even the ashtrays survived Vienna's no-smoking laws, though the staff put them out in recent years only when ordered to do so by Hawelka, keeping a sharp eye on things from a stuffed brocade couch in the back of his establishment.

Though his visits grew increasingly rare as he neared 100, Hawelka left no doubt who was in charge when he did drop by.

"He remains our director-general," said grandson Michael Hawelka earlier this year. "Whenever he is here, he's the boss."

The war on the Christmas tree

By: Vickie J. Rubinson

German settlers decorated Christmas trees in Pennsylvania in the early 18th century, but it took time for the custom to catch on in the rest of the country, where the tree was seen as a symbol of pagan idolatry.

In Ohio, it was not until 1851, that a German pastor, the Rev. Heinrich Christian Schwan, dared to put a decorated tree inside his Cleveland church. His act was met with local outrage. The tree, said one newspaper, was a "nonsensical, asinine, moronic, absurdity."

The editors castigated Lutherans for "groveling before a shrub." Schwan was forced to take it down, but the following year he convinced community leaders to relent by arguing that the Christmas tree was a long-held Christian tradition, in his native country.

Yet the concerns he encountered persisted among some Christians well into the 20th century. They point to Jeremiah 10:1-4, which condemns the "vanity" of cutting down a "tree from the forest" and decorating it with silver and gold. In 1991, theologian Dr. Ernest L. Martin wrote, "The modern Christmas tree is a prime example in our day of what the heathen were doing in the time of Jeremiah."

"The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" (1970)

By: Vickie J. Rubinson

"The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" is an Italian film based on the novel of the same name.

In the late 1930s, in Ferrara, Italy, a group of young friends get together for afternoon of tennis and happy times. Some of them are Jewish and a rising tide of Fascism has imposed increasingly anti-Semitic restrictions in their lives.

Barred from regular tennis clubs, they go to play at the grand, walled estate owned by the Finzi-Contini, a wealthy, intellectual and sophisticated Jewish family. The two young Finzi-Contini, Alberto and his sister Micol, have organized a tennis tournament. Oblivious to the threats around them, life still seems to be sunny at the large Finzi-Contini estate, keeping the rest of the world at bay.

Into the circle steps Giorgio, a Jew from the middle class who falls in love with Micol. She seems to toy with him and even makes love to one of his pals while she knows Giorgio is watching. While his love cannot seem to break through to her to draw her out of her garden idyll, the forces of politics close in.

By 1943, all the young Jews who used to visit the Garden of the Finzi-Continis have been arrested.

The "Garden of the Finzi-Continis" won the Academy Award for Best Foreign language Film and won the Golden Bear at the 21st Berlin International Film Festival in 1971.

Declaw Your Cat in Israel, Spend a Year in Prison

By: Vickie J. Rubinson

Israel, land of shredded couch corners? Maybe. At the end of November, the country passed a bill that bans the declawing of cats--with some seriously stiff penalties. Those convicted of the crime will face up to a year in prison and a $20,000 fine reports Discover. If the idea of banning the practice shocks you, you're probably American. About 25% of cats here are believed to be declawed, but doing so is illegal in Europe, Australia, Brazil and beyond.

"The Bicycle Thief" (1948)

By: Vickie J. Rubinson

"The Bicycle Thief" tells the story of a poor man searching the streets of Rome for his stolen bike which he needs to be able to work. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Luigi Bartolini and stars Lamberto Maggiorani as the poor man searching for his lost bike and Enzo Staiola as his cherubic loyal son.

It was given an Honorary Academy Award in 1950 and just four years after its release, was deemed the greatest film of all time by the magazine "Sight and Sound's" poll of filmmakers and critics in 1952.

Antonio Ricci is an unemployed man in the depressed post World War II economy of Italy. With a wife and two children to support, he is desperate for work. He is delighted to at least get a good job pasting up posters, but he must have a bicycle. He is told unequivocally, "No bike, no job."

His wife Maria pawns their bedsheets in order to get money to redeem his bike from the pawnbroker. On his first day of work, Antonio's bike is stolen by a young thief who snatches it when he is putting up a poster. From there we see Antonio and his young son Bruno searching all over Rome for the missing bicycle.

One heartbreaking scene--during a rare treat of a meal in a fine Italian restaurant, Antonio and his son ask for a pizza but are told by the snobby waiter that "this isn't a pizzaria." So they order a simple sandwich of melted Mozzerella on bread and while they eat with their hands, a snooty well-nourished and well dressed Italian boy (the same age as Bruno), dines on a sumptuous lunch buffet, giving Bruno condescending looks as he twirls his pasta on fine silverware.

The look on poor Bruno's face tells it all...he is dirt poor and must rely on his father to survive. To survive the father tells him he needs a bike. Sitting on the curb outside a packed football stadium, Antonio sees hundreds and hundreds of parked bicycles. As he cradles his head in despair, a fleet of bicycles speed past him. After vacillating for some time, he tries to steal one outside an apartment. However, he is caught by a crowd of angry men who slap and humiliate him in front of his son. The bicycle owner sees how upset Bruno is and mercifully declines to press charges. Antonio and his son walk away, dejected into the dirty streets of Rome.

"M" Murderers Among Us (1931)

By: Vickie J. Rubinson

German American director Fritz Lang presents his first "talkie"--and cinema's first serial killer--in this 1931 classic whose central villain was later used in Nazi propaganda films to illustrate the evils of sexual deviance.

Propelled by a compulsion he can't control, plump pedophile Hans Becker (Peter Lorre in a winning performance), escapes the eye of the law--but not the wrath of the Berlin underworld being blamed for his crimes. Otto Wernicke co-stars.

Now on Twitter: Joseph von Nazareth

By: Vickie J. Rubinson

There might not be room at the inn, but you can always squeeze 140 characters onto Twitter.

Joseph of Nazareth, aka Joseph von Nazareth because he tweets in German, has taken to the Twitterverse to broadcast his tiny family's tribulations this CHristmas reports Der Spiegel.

"Do you have any carpenter's work in Jerusalem? If so, I'm the man for the job," he recently tweeted. "Please note that currently I can only take orders in Nazareth and the surrounding area."

The anonymous tweeter--a self described third generation carpenter from Nazareth--started posting in Joseph's voice the first day of December and plans to continue through the Big Day. Just now he's a bit upset that Mary is pregnant. He's certain the baby isn't his.

The 10 Best Cities to Live

By: Vickie J. Rubinson

If you're looking for the world's top quality of living, get thee to Vienna, the elegant European capital that tops the list of best cities to live, reports Reuters. The other end of the spectrum is found, perhaps unsurprisingly in Baghdad. The rankings are compiled by consulting group Mercer, which evaluated cities based on public safety, housing, local economy, recreation and a bevy of other quality-of-life indicators. The top 10"

1. Vienna, Austria

2. Zurich, Switzerland

3. Auckland, New Zealand

4. Munich, Germany

5. Dusseldorf, Germany

6. Vancouver, Canada

7. Frankfurt, Germany

8. Geneva, Switzerland

9. Tie: Copenhagen, Denmark and Bern, Switzerland