The "Eifel" Behind Those Zoo Escapes

Several animals, including 2 lions, 2 tigers, a bear and a jaguar break out of a zoo in Germany's hilly Eifel area on Friday, June 1, 2018. All were soon captured, except the bear, which was shot dead.

Eifel? Eiffel? What's the story behind the name?

The Eifel lies between the cities of Aachen to the north, Trier to the south and Koblenz to the east. It descends in the northeast along a line from Aachen via Düren to Bonn into the Lower Rhine Bay. In the east and south it is bounded by the valleys of the Rhine and the Moselle. To the west it transitions in Belgium and Luxembourg into the geologically related Ardennes and the Luxembourg Ösling. In the north it is limited by the Jülich-Zülpicher Börde. Within Germany it lies within the states of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia; in BeNeLux the area of Eupen, St. Vith and Luxembourg. Its highest point is the volcanic cone of the Hohe Acht (746.9 m). Originally the Carolingian Eifelgau only covered the smaller region roughly around the sources of the rivers Ahr, Kyll, Urft and Erft. Its name was more recently transferred to the entire region.

The Eifel was inhabited by people: Neandertals and modern man, Homo sapiens.

Regarding the origins of the name Eifel:

Müller/Schnetz (1937) believe that an -n- has dropped out between the diphthong and the syllable, -fel. The resulting root form Anfil or Anfali would then mean an "area that is not so level". An- would then be a prefix and -fali, which is related to the Slavic polje ("field"), means "plain" or "heath".
W. Kaspers (1938) deduces from the surviving form in pago aquilinse the root form aku-ella, akwella and points to its development into the name "Eifel" in the following sequence: aquila > agfla > aifla > eifla > Eifel. Akuella derives from the pre-German and means "land with summits" or "land with peaks".
Both propositions, like several others, are highly contentious. The most convincing proposal is that of Heinrich Dittmaier (1961). Dittmaier initially derives it from the Germanic Ai-fil. The second component corresponds to Ville, which is the name of a ridge between the Erft, Swist and Rhine today. The variants Vele, Vile and Viele may often be found in place names such as Veler Weg or Veler Pfad. Unlike the modern word Ville the fricative consonant is hard in "Eifel". Responsible for that was probably a sound between ai- and -fil, which was assimilated by the f, possibly f, k, ch, d, t. Dittmaier believes the missing sound was a k or ch, whereby "Eifel" originally went back to Aik-fil. Aik/Aich is also a name for oak (Eiche) and qualifies the root word ville. On the basis that it was covered by oak trees, the Eifel (= Eich-Ville) could thus be distinguished from the other Ville, a name still used today, on the Erft. However, the original, historical and even current vegetation of the present day Ville is dominated by oak mixed forest.
The meaning of "Ville" is also disputed. Dittmaier gives three possible explanations: "marshy region", "plain, heath" and "heathland", which would all bring geology and vegetation into harmony.
Another proposal sees the name as even older and possibly of Celtic origin. Near Cologne, an altar was found, which was dedicated to Matronae Aufaniae Celtic goddesses which were honoured by flowing water. The thesis that the name "Eifel" was derived from this source is not conclusive, but it is persuasive; Eifel would then mean "land of water" or "watery mountains".

Gustave Eiffel was born in Burgundy, France, in the city of Dijon, Côte-d'Or, the first child of Catherine-Mélanie (née Moneuse) and Alexandre Bönickhausen. He was a descendant of Jean-René Bönickhausen, who had emigrated from the German town of Marmagen and settled in Paris at the beginning of the 18th century. The family adopted the name Eiffel as a reference to the Eifel mountains in the region from which they had come.

Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (born Bönickhausen; 15 December 1832 – 27 December 1923) was a French civil engineer. A graduate of École Centrale Paris, he made his name with various bridges for the French railway network, most famously the Garabit viaduct. He is best known for the world-famous Eiffel Tower, built for the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris, and his contribution to building the Statue of Liberty in New York.

Wayne Williams, 33

Wayne Williams

W W

23 23

A business dispute between a Finks bikie (Australian jargon for a motorcycle gang member) and a group of brothers is believed to have been the catalyst for a siege in southwest Sydney, Australia, that ended with two men shot dead and two others injured on March 7, 2016. (In the USA, that day is National Cereal Day.)

Three other hostages escaped unharmed after the six hour ordeal which began when Finks bikie member Wayne Williams, 33, shot three men inside a signage business at Ingleburn at 10:45am.

Williams died by suicide when he shot himself.

Mick Bassal, 43, was killed, and his two brothers were injured when Williams opened fire with a long-arm firearm.

One of the other injured brothers was rushed to Liverpool hospital where he underwent emergency surgery, the other suffered superficial gunshot wounds to the legs. Both remained in a stable condition on Monday evening.

Officers and paramedics rushed to Inline National Signage on the corner of Heald and Stennett roads where a siege situation quickly developed, Australian media noted.

Also in the news lately because of another parol hearing has been another Wayne Williams (born May 27, 1958), who is an alleged American serial killer who was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1982 for killing two adult men. After his conviction the Atlanta Police announced that Williams was responsible for at least 23 of the 29 Atlanta murders of 1979–1981, also called the "Atlanta Child Murders." Williams continues to maintain his innocence. (W = 23 again.)

Michael A. Hoffman II raised awareness linking "cereal" killers/murders to "serial" killers.  See here.

Yet another Wayne Williams has been in the news lately because of election news from Colorado. Wayne Williams is an American attorney and politician. A member of the Republican Party, he is the Secretary of State of Colorado.

Intriguingly, Williams grew up in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. His father was the facilities manager of the National Zoo's Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, where Williams was raised. See "zoo" notes, recently.

See more "Wayne" notes here.

"Zoo" Shootings: Kalamazoo to Kansas

Preprogramming from the summer of 2015?

On Saturday, February 20, 2016, Uber driver Jason Brian Dalton, 45, killed six people in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in the 42nd mass shooting of 2016. The first people killed were Tyler D. Smith (17), and his father Richard E. Smith (53), who were both killed at the Kia car dealership. Four women – Mary Jo Nye (60), Mary Lou Nye (62), Dorothy Brown (74), and Barbara Hawthorne (68) – were killed at the Cracker Barrel. A 14-year-old girl who was with the four women at Cracker Barrel was shot in the head, and was initially presumed dead, but later confirmed to have survived. As of February 23, she remained on a ventilator and in critical condition.

Then another shooting happened in Kansas.

Gabrielle Giffords was to observe:

On February 25, 2016, three people were killed and fourteen others injured in a series of shootings in Newton and Hesston, Kansas, including in and outside an Excel Industries building. The dead victims were identified as Randall "Renee" Benjamin, 30; Joshua Higbee, 31; and Brian Sadowsky, 44. All were killed inside the Excel plant.The shooter, identified as Excel employee Cedric Larry Ford (pictured below), was then killed by a responding police officer.

The shootings began at around 4:57 p.m. at a street intersection in Newton, where Ford shot at two vehicles in a drive-by shooting. The first motorist suffered a non-fatal gunshot wound to the shoulder, while the second motorist escaped unscathed after a bullet pierced the car's windshield. He then drove down Old U.S. Route 81 and fired at oncoming traffic. His vehicle and another one crashed in a nearby ditch, after which he got out, shot and injured the other driver in the leg, and stole that victim's vehicle.

To excel is to do better than others. Mass shooters often covertly compete against each other.

Ford then arrived at Excel Industries, a manufacturer of lawnmowers, in Hesston, injured an elderly woman in the parking lot, went inside the building, and fired randomly at the assembly lines, shooting several employees. He then shot at the first officer to respond to the scene, and the officer fired back. He was struck by bullets and died at 5:23 p.m. Ford was armed with a Zastava Arms AK-47-style semi-automatic rifle and a Glock 22 semi-automatic pistol. At least 150 people were inside the plant at the time of the shooting there.

Recall that the mass shooting right before Newton-Hesston, Kansas, was the one in Kalamazoo. Strangely, in a CNN article on Cedric Larry Ford, it was noted: "On his first visit to a zoo, he was awestruck by the beauty of wildlife, friend and co-worker Matt Jarrell said." It seems an odd detail.

Attention should be given also to the fact that this shooting spree began in Newton, Kansas, reminding some of Newtown, Connecticut, the site of the Sandy Hook school shooting of December 14, 2012, occurred.

Many of the early settlers of Hesston, Kansas, were Mennonite farmers. In 1909, the Mennonite Church founded the Hesston College, because of that fact.

Cedric (French spelling: Cédric) is a masculine given name invented by Sir Walter Scott in the 1819 novel Ivanhoe. It is of Old English origin, and the meaning of Cedric is "kind and loved." The invented name is based on Cerdic, the name of a 6th-century Anglo-Saxon king (itself from Brittonic Cortices).

Have you noticed how the mainstream media are not talking about mass shootings as much as usual?

President Obama told the media that to mass shootings should dominate the news on Friday, February 26, 2016, saying "the real tragedy is the degree to which this has become routine."

The media is overwhelming the US public with its obsessive attention to ad hominem attacks between politicians, especially on the Republican side. Covert violence. Those who are being triggered to "go off" are getting the message.

It really is a zoo out there!

Dick Van Patten Dies, Had Appeared on Kolchak: The Night Stalker

Dick Van Patten as Alfred Brindle

Actor Dick Van Patten, 86, died on June 23, 2015 (St. John's Eve), in Santa Monica, California. Most of the roles he played were of a wholesome, family man. There is one, however, that links him to aliens and a precursor X-Files-like aura.

Van Patten played Alfred Brindle, an upset homeowner, in the television series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker: Season 1, Episode 3, "They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be...", first broadcast on September 27, 1974.

The episode had a unique storyline with regard to alien visitors, what their reasons are for visiting Earth, and Kolchak's discovery of them and their motivations.

From the IMDb, this is a detailed overview of the plot:

An alien visitor with a taste for human bone marrow is stealing a strange list of seemingly unconnected items.
On his way to see the first game of the World Series, Kolchak can't pass up looking into the mysterious deaths of a security guard and several animals at the zoo. While there, he learns that the guard had been drained of all his bone marrow. 
During his travels, Kolchak witnesses the wall at an electronics factory being blown out by an invisible force that also makes a huge shipment of lead ingots vanish before his eyes. He later visits a neighbourhood, the scene of a rash of thefts of electronics equipment, where a mysterious black substance has been found- the same substance discovered at the scene of the incidents at the zoo.
Also strange, Kolchak and everyone else who'd witnessed the incident at the electronics factory finds that their watch has stopped due to exposure to electro magnetic radiation. 
As Kolchak begins to form a theory about what may be behind all this bizarre phenomena, he discovers his investigation has attracted the attention of "men in black" who visit the newsroom and confiscate his photos of the incident at the electronics plant. Carl soon puts the rest of the pieces together when the invisible force enters a local planetarium and begins scanning star maps. When the entity later exits the premises, Carl tracks it with a compass that reacts to it's electro magnetic emanations. 
In a wooded area near yet another body, Kolchak discovers that this invisible creature has been using all the electronic equipment to repair it's spaceship. The alien then moves in to attack Kolchak, but he is able to repel it with the sound vibrations from his camera. The reporter then watches as the saucer-shaped craft simply disappears into thin air.
Though burdened with a rather awkward title, "They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be..." definitely has its merits. The alien's attacks, for example, are shot effectively using subjective camera angles that close in tight on the faces of its victims. Since the unseen being moves with the force of a small cyclone, the musical arrangement employs the frenzied strains of a violin to neatly approximate the sound of a tumultuous wind. 
Though not as frightening as some of Kolchak's other adversaries, the alien's habit of sucking the marrow from its victims bones is certainly a unique method of murder. This also leads to the episode's funniest scene in which Carl relates all the ghoulish details of the alien's rampage to Vincenzo who is trying to enjoy a gourmet meal. As he describes it, "at the scene of each of these deaths is a puddle, a pile of this gooey, greenish, black bile. It really stinks, Tony." Naturally, Vincenzo loses his appetite entirely when the next course on the menu turns out to be brains. 
There's some excellent guest-star work here, too from Dick Van Patten as an irate homeowner, John Fielder, back as "Gordie the Ghoul", and Mary Wickes as a zoo coroner. The obligatory "Get outta' here, Kolchak!"-type police nemesis is played by familiar character actor, James Gregory.
While we never actually see the alien, director Allen Baron does give us a sense of its size by casting a vaguely defined silhouette of it on the planetarium wall. Unfortunately, the departure of the U.F.O. is not so effective. To indicate that it has taken off, the lights on the craft simply go out, but you can clearly make out that the saucer is still sitting there in the dark. 
The pace during the planetarium sequence does drag a bit, and the horror element in this one is left a bit too much to the imagination. Still, it appears "They Have Been.." may have impressed someone out there as it does bear quite a resemblance to a 1996 X-Files episode, the plot of which had unseen extraterrestrials attacking humans and rendering zoo animals invisible before confiscating them. Perhaps it was meant to be The X-File's tribute to this flawed, but still quite interesting, imaginative episode. Source.