Posts Tagged ‘theme parks’
Being there…
The Holy Land Experience is a 15-acre faith-based family theme park in Orlando, Florida owned and operated since 2007 by the world’s largest religious broadcaster, Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). It features attractions and interactive exhibits like Smile of a Child Adventure Land, The Scriptorium research library and museum, a “breathtaking, inspirational water show” called the Crystal Living Waters and much more.
At their Jerusalem Street Market, “you will travel back in time to an ancient land that is 2000 years old and 7000 miles away!” and at Calvary’s Garden Tomb, you can spend time “resting, praying, or reflecting on the meaning and significance of the empty tomb”. To experience “first century shopping”, head on over to The Old Scroll Shop. There are even live theatrical performances. It’s almost like a modern day Bible Storyland but with less rides…
Read the full story at the ever-illuminating Laughing Squid.
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As we remark that this is the anniversary of the opening of Atlantic City’s Boardwalk, we might recall that this is also one dates given for the for the day that the Pied Piper (Rattenfänger) led the children of Hamelin, Germany, into a mountain cave.
A German version of the tale seems to have survived in a 1602/1603 inscription found in Hamelin in the Rattenfängerhaus (Pied Piper’s, or Ratcatcher’s house):
Anno 1284 am dage Johannis et Pauli
war der 26. junii
Dorch einen piper mit allerlei farve bekledet
gewesen CXXX kinder verledet binnen Hamelen gebo[re]n
to calvarie bi den koppen verloren
which has been translated into English as:
In the year of 1284, on John’s and Paul’s day
was the 26th of June
By a piper, dressed in all kinds of colours,
130 children born in Hamelin were seduced
and lost at the place of execution near the Koppen.
Re-extinction…
East Berlin’s Kulturpark Plänterwald had been the only amusement park in the German Democratic Republic (GDR)– a kind of Coney Island for socialists. There was no real coordination nor theme – it was a mix of attractions and rides. But when the GDR collapsed in 1989, Kulturpark Plänterwald– suddenly exposed to market forces– quickly followed. It had a brief renaissance (as “Spreepark”) in the early 90s– but promptly fell victim to a lack of available parking.
Since then, the park has been closed… and the dinosaurs that “roamed” its expanse have fallen victim to the German version of “cow tipping.”
See more derelict dinosaurs at Kuriositas. [TotH to Dangerous Minds]
As we keep watch for falling comets and asteroids, we might recall that it was on this date in 1916 that Robert Stroud stabbed and killed a prison guard at Leavenworth Penitentiary– resulting his being moved to “segregated” confinement for the balance of his sentence. While serving his solitary tme, Stroud– who’d been assessed by prison psychologists as “a psychopath with an IQ of 134”– began to work with birds (largely canaries). Ultimately his research, conducted entirely in his cell, resulted in two books, Diseases of Canaries, and a later edition, Stroud’s Digest on the Diseases of Birds, with updated specific information. He made several important contributions to avian pathology, most notably a cure for hemorrhagic septicemia.
In 1942, Stroud was transferred to Alcatraz, where policies against animals in cells meant an end to his research. Still, he is remembered as “The Birdman of Alcatraz.”
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