German bloggers series continues: Gedanken zum Thema Pirna
Which means "thoughts about Pirna." Last week an article in the German net-zine Telepolis drew attention to this sign, posted by an elderly shopkeeper in Pirna, Germany. Translated, the rather ugly message is

"Foreigners are to wait here! You may express your wishes. Actual entry to the business only with escort person (co-worker, Manager)."

As Telepolis explains, the small town of 40,000 has only about 1% foreigners, but they seem to bother this shopkeeper, who explained, "Because they're choleric [stürmisch] and yank stuff down quickly. They take stuff with them, we don't like that." The sign was quickly condemned throughout German blogland: Schockwellenreiter (which means "Shockwave Rider"), kriTlog, brainstorm, nothing but the truth/worldwideklein, sofa blog, diJaLog (sounds like "dialog"), doubtless others as well.

Seeing how German bloggers reacted to this German incident seemed like a good way to continue the German blogger series I started a few days ago. First a couple of caveats: none of this is to imply that all Germans are xenophobic. The bloggers themselves uniformly condemn the sign, almost to the point of overkill. Nor is any of this to imply that the U.S. and we its citizens couldn't do better in preventing racism and discrimination in this country. Without wishing to make way too much of a single incident (while reserving the right to make just enough of it), any incident like this is one too many, wherever it occurs. With that, on to Comparative German Bloggology! How can you resist?

Sofablog's Evi Kritzinger apparently skimmed the article too quickly and decided it had happened in Switzerland. Plausible, but false, but understandable: Pirna is in a hilly-to-mountainous region of East Germany called the "Saechsischer Schweiz", i.e., the "Switzerland of Saxony". Geography lessons ensued, but little direct commentary.

It turns out that "brainstorm" ... isn't. He or she is given to diatribes on the military-industrial complex, lectures on how to use the WTC site* (no profit-making office buildings, no siree) etc. Thus "brainstorm" sees the incident as an effect of German deployments to Somalia and Afghanistan, and sees the real problem in German officialdom not rooting out neoNazis. kriTlog's primus inter paries Ralph Segert concedes some of those points, but confines himself to supporting an letter-writing campaign. Segert sees "day to day German racism" as the problem.

It gets more interesting with Joerg Kantel ("Shockwave Rider"). Kantel is a nerd, happiest when tweaking his blog with "RadioUserland" software, or finding "BoingBoing.net"-like items to share with his audience. Politically, let's say he's no warblogger; Bush and Schroeder both made him "nauseous," and he partook of the trembly, admonishing, how-dare-you-interrupt-our-peaceful-autumn attitude sweeping Europe late last year. But his comment the day he noticed the photo was

Walter Ulbricht [former East German prime minister] was right. The wall was an antifascist breakwater [Schutzwall: protective wall]. He was just wrong about the direction.

I.e., it kept the fascists in East Germany.

diJalog writer and Saxony native Joerg (henceforth "Joerg diJalog", I've found no last name) had initially called Pirna a Rassistenkaff (racist "rubeville", more or less), but quickly regretted that as the kind of slur on his region he resents. I don't want to pass judgment on anyone too much; as a (white) ex-Southerner I can understand the impulse to defend and rationalize one's home region's failings, while as an ex-Southerner I also understand how impatient that can make others. At any rate, "Joerg diJaLog" took this up in a discussion on Konstantin Klein's blog-empire (worldwideklein and nothingbutthetruth, both with English and German versions! Now that's dedication).

As far as Pirna is concerned, Klein himself (like Kantel, given to frequent unintelligible stuff about HTML, CSS and whatnot) is interesting mainly for saying one thing on one of his English "Nothing but the truth" ("how come that it's mostly East German nazis (or xenophobes, for that matter) we hear about"), and quite a different thing on his German "Nothing but the truth" ("stuff like this is everywhere, in [Austria], [France], [Italy] and [the US], too"), on the same day. Klein is not exactly wrong either way, and his comments on current events are often good. But spinning things one way in German and another in English doesn't seem to quite live up to his site's name.

When "Joerg diJalog" and "Joerg Shockwave" both showed up and had a debate on Klein's site (German "Nothing but the truth") about how fair or unfair it was to make the regional connection, Shockwave weighed in last, with an objection to Klein's and Joerg diJalog's equivocations on this score: "..I don't hold the DDR [former East German communist republic] solely responsible...[it was that way before the Communists]... Prussianism, Calvinism, and servility to authority have produced a dangerous melange... I think highly of sweeping in front of one's own door before looking [elsewhere]."

Now, if you ask me, (and I know, you didn't) the right answer is that Kantel ("Shockwave") was right: making the regional connection is fair as hell, whatever the ultimate reasons are.** East Germany has way more than its share of hate crimes; according to a 2001 BBC report, nearly half of the 14,000 hate and/or anti-Semitic crimes in Germany between January and November, 2000 occurred in Germany's reunited eastern states, where only about 20% of Germans live. Saxony, for whatever reasons, perhaps urbanicity, led the way early on with bad and recurring incidents in Leipzig, Dresden and Hoyerswerda. What makes this doubly interesting is that despite this racist/fascist undercurrent, the ex-communist PDS party is getting stronger in East Germany generally and in Saxony in particular, more than doubling its vote there to over 20% between 1990 and 1999. Yet the far-right Deutsche Volksunion (DVU) scored 13% of the vote there in 1998.

I'd also say that, if anything, Kantel pulls his punches a little too much regarding the East German communist era. As the CNN report notes in passing, one factor distinguishing East and West Germany is their educational systems' treatment of Nazi German history: East German authorities claimed the mantle of resistance and never acknowledged any shared East German responsibility for Nazi German crimes. So, as Ulbricht's statement suggests, little introspection or education about the possibility of East German fascism (or racism) occurred.

Whether or not Frau Shopkeeper votes CDU, DVU, some other right-wing splinter party, or even PDS next election -- PDS is admittedly unlikely, but there is a "good old days" element to its support -- she illustrates that there's still something different about East Germany, ten years after reunification. That difference got an interesting range of treatments by German bloggers. It seems to wilfully miss the point when Marxist/ anti-globalizer/ leftoid/ whatevers (leftoid whatevers=leftovers? I kind of like that) like "brainstorm" or "kriTlog" can see racism's root causes in sweeping theories of capitalism or foreign policy, or when apologists like Klein or diJaLog only see racism "like anywhere else," when East German racism -- and perhaps this shopkeeper -- seem to be evidence of something more local and more specific than anything these explanations can offer.

And now I'll reflect on what points I go around wilfully missing. It hardly seems possible I'd do such a thing.

Who cares, you ask? I do. And around here, that's all that really matters.

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* Yours truly weighs in on this "brainstorm" with two comments, once to say "Nonsense, New York City isn't a cemetery or an art gallery" (see also NYC-dweller Jeff Jarvis on this) and once to help a dim bulb with his reading skills (How many flags did I put up in front of my house? One).
** Re "servility to authority," some have argued rather the opposite, suggesting the East German police were so discredited in the wake of unification that their law-enforcement authority was compromised. I don't know whether this has persisted, if it was ever a factor. More to the point, many East German police simply left the force due to background investigations following unification, although staffing levels must have gradually recovered. At any rate, in addition to inherent regional difference theories, one can add "unification-induced" regional difference theories -- without necessarily impugning unification per se. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:02:00 AM -- |    

 

Shabby firefighter memorial quarrel ends, "political correctness" averted. Whew!
The Washington Post reports (in "Red, White and Blue, For Starters") that critics of the re-cast firefighters' flag-raising memorial -- chief among them the three firefighters themselves -- have prevailed:

The three men -- Johnson, McWilliams and Eisengrein -- are themselves opposed to any rendering of the flag-raising that does not depict them. Their lawyer warned the fire department to "cease and desist" from using the photographic image of the three men that was to be the model for the statue.

Late this afternoon, the fire department bowed to that pressure. After a day of meetings with Bruce Ratner, the statue's benefactor, Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta announced he "will consider new options" for a memorial.

And well he should. Having taken critics' objections to heart, I, too, found myself troubled by the facts that the statue's flag was at full mast instead of half mast, the fireman on the left was placed to face the viewer, rather than sideways, and the firemens' arms were extended in ways I did not see in the sacred photograph we seek to set in stone. The Post finds some additional familiar reasoning to support the decision:

"You wouldn't change Iwo Jima, so why would you change that?" Thomas Manley, sergeant at arms of the United Firefighters Association, said in an interview today.

Right. In keeping with the Iwo Jima theme we wish to recycle, I propose that the Fire Commissioner order a second, bigger flag-raising, staffed by different firefighters of his choice and photographed by a second photographer. If necessary for verisimilitude, three white males can attend to the flag-raising, striking poses contrived to closely resemble the first photograph, while other firefighters, perhaps black or Hispanic -- but only if that's OK with absolutely everyone -- can pose attending to real fire-fighter duties such as putting out fires. Then we can make a true-to-life memorial out of that photograph and call it a day.

Decent firefighter memorial to endure indefinitely
But here's a calming, decent, graceful note in the New York Daily News: "Died Together & Buried Together: 3 Co. 118 firemen will share grave. Their names: Pete Vega, Joey Agnello, Vernon Cherry. Their shared grave: a better and more important thing than re-creating Iwo Jima moments.

Thank you. All of you.

Rest in peace.

(news item via reader Chris Protopapas) posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:11:00 PM -- |    

 

Photodude ID's Raimondo as crypto-warblogger
Late Tuesday Matt Welch drew attention to "antiwar.com" guy Justin Raimondo, who published a screed deriding "warbloggers". Now Reid Stott, aka "Photodude", has gone to the trouble to read more of Justin Raimondo's stuff. Lo and behold, Reid discovered that Raimondo is practically a warblogger himself. On September 28, Raimondo wrote:

After releasing the evidence against Osama bin Laden and his followers – or whoever – we need to go in and take them out.The conquest of the Middle East, or even Afghanistan, needn't enter into it. An attack on our own soil must be meant with retaliation swift and sure: but what kind of retribution is it that demands we go in and engage in 'nation-building' as neocon columnist James Pinkerton suggests? It seems like an open invitation to terrorists everywhere: just blow up a few major American landmarks, and we'll rebuild your nation for you! [...] No, much better to strike – and leave. ... let us be done with this nest of Middle Eastern vipers.

Well, Rumsfeld granted your every wish, Mr. Raimondo. As Stott writes, this reads like it might have come from most any "warblog", even by Raimondo's own tilted definition ("War is good, bracing, and invariably righteous ... vehement in their contempt for Arabs..."). So what's up with Raimondo? It's almost as if his latest item is in penance for the just-after-9/11-one. Or maybe it's just tough to have to pay the bills (suggested donation: $50) with a site called "antiwar.com."

But I still don't think it was very nice to generalize about Middle Easterners that way. posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:53:00 PM -- |    

 

Real Enron scandal was what was legal, says New Republic
Signed, "The Editors", the New Republic argues (in "The Real Enron Scandal"):

But the single biggest reason Enron escaped detection is that it invested in a particular kind of derivatives--a complex financial arrangement--that, due to its newness, escaped regulatory oversight altogether. No law required Enron to disclose its derivatives' investments on its balance sheets at all.

Some regulators found this alarming--in 1997 Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, proposed more stringent disclosure requirements for derivatives. But financial interests, including Enron, vigorously resisted. At one point, according to The Wall Street Journal, House Banking Committee Chairman Jim Leach scolded Born for two hours for her pro-reform leanings.

This would appear to second Bill Keller's charge in the New York Times, discussed below. Over at "More Than Zero," on the other hand, you'll read that it was Enron's subsidiaries and the financial derivatives contracts Enron created with these subsidiaries that was the problem, and that these would have remained unregulated anyway -- at least by legislation that Senator Gramm was involved in defeating passing. So, financial historians: what was going on when?

A small thing makes me wonder about the TNR article: their single quote at the end of derivatives', almost as if they're confusing the financial arrangement with the subsidiary entities. Can a derivative have an investment?

Meanwhile, for those of you scoring at home, jot down that baseball guru and conservative icon George Will is lambasting Enron, Arthur Andersen and Wall Street culture in general too ("The arrogance of the executives"), although he uses the final half of this column to specifically decry many of the possible political consequences as leading to moral hazard (Will introduces the term TBTF: too big to fail), constitutional crisis, and/or abrogation of the freedom to make American politics a race for money. Rather, Will ends somewhat lamely, executives' arrogance must be curbed by giving them the feeling they're being watched. Well! I'm for that, if it's more than a feeling, and if it's more than an accountant they've hired for $50 million to say the right thing (I introduce the term TBTPO: too big to p*** off). Score it as a long fly ball to the warning track.


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1/18, 10PM: Correction to "passing,"as implied by Keller quote in my earlier 1/12 post, and vow to pay closer attention to "details." My mistake dawned on me while reading Charles Dodgson's interesting piece on Enron. More on that and other Enron thoughts later; check out Dodgson's piece. posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:32:00 PM -- |    

 

Transatlantic blog Gitlin synchronicity
Dan Hartung and German blogger Peter Praschl notice the same article by Todd Gitlin, "Blaming America First?", in Mother Jones. The piece more or less recycles an article Gitlin wrote for openDemocracy.org, which I mentioned last year (Welch noticed it first, go there for the link). Hartung and Praschl both have good comments. I assume most of you will need more help with Praschl's, which are:

Myopia in the name of the weak is as myopic as myopia in the name of the strong. "Blaming America First" is a an article that is often quite engaging about hypocrisy, logical and moral inconsistencies, and the like in anti-American positions. And in an accompanying discussion there is a very heated quarrel whether there is such a thing as left-wing fundamentalism.

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Translation note: "Kurzsichtigkeit"="near-sightedness," not "myopia"; while clinically different (I think), "myopia" scans better, and means the same thing in context. posted by Thomas Nephew at 2:39:00 PM -- |    

 

Congress, Pentagon heed Layne, Johnson, doubt Saudis
Slowly but surely, the "our good friends the Saudis" campaign (see Ken Layne and/or Charles Johnson on any given day) gathers steam. From the New York Times, "Dismay With Saudi Arabia Fuels Pullout Talk":

A number of senior officials in Congress and the Pentagon are saying the United States should consider withdrawing military forces from Saudi Arabia because of frustration over what they consider the kingdom's tepid support for the war on terrorism and the restrictions it places on American military operations.

Cons include all that time and money spent sprucing up Prince Sultan Air Force Base with high-tech command and control facilities. But as the Times quotes Senator Carl Levin (D-MI):

"...I think the war against terrorism has got to be fought by countries who really realize that it's in everybody's interest to go after terrorism. I think we may be able to find a place where we are much more welcome openly," he said, "a place which has not seen significant resources flowing to support some really extreme, fanatic views."

Levin is referring, of course, to Saudi support for the notorious madrassa schools instilling jihadism and Wahhabism -- and nothing else -- in Pakistan and elsewhere. Sentiment at the Pentagon is similarly unenthusiastic about the Saudis:

In the Pentagon, a growing number of commanders are frustrated with the Saudis' refusal to allow American warplanes based at a sprawling airfield south of Riyadh to bomb Iraq and other Islamic countries, except in self-defense. "We're pretty heavily invested in Saudi right now," a senior military official said. "But if the opportunity arose to operate somewhere else in the region we'd be pretty interested."

Other prominent Congressional Saudi critics identified by the article include Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO), and to a lesser degree Rep. Porter Goss (R-FL). A credible alternative to the Prince Sultan airfield would probably do wonders for Saudi Arabia's attitude on investigations in that country, and cooperation with anti-terror campaigns elsewhere. posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:33:00 PM -- |    

 

Denial is a river in Los Angeles
Ken Layne takes humorous issue with my pet peeve about poor linking habits, calling me an "evil subhuman" and suggesting I be dunked in molten butter. That's OK; the story about Matt was worth it. Ken also makes full use of editorial license in failing to inform readers that I had foreseen his "LGF is always about Saudi Arabia" dodge. That's OK, too. But Ken is still in denial: it appears that he clicks links and then copies the address he sees displayed, thinking in his savage, left coast, "testosterone-drenched" way that he's workin' the Internet real good:

Maybe it's my browser, or Blogger, or something. But I see #8491548 at the bottom of my browser when I click that link ... and it doesn't show up when the archive deal loads up. I blame Penny.

Close, grasshopper: Blame Blogspot. For Blogspot-served addresses such as Damian Penny's, Tim Blair's, and others, doing this does not give a correct address for the link. The address displayed appears to be a function of the server, not the browser; my own superior link to Penny's sports comment also shows an "anchorless" (no #8491548) address, yet -- in glaring contrast to Ken's link -- it actually works.

Instead of copying the address he gets to, young Ken should have copied the property of the link itself, by right-mouse-clicking the link, and then choosing "Copy Shortcut", and pasting that full link address into the link description (or whatever the word for that is). I use Internet Explorer 5.5; I assume similar commands exist for Netscape users and other unfortunates. In this way, he will attain enlightenment, and save his valued readers time. Again, Ken: just say, "I will consider it." Live long and prosper. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:39:00 AM -- |    

 

See you much, much later, Suleyman Walker
Quite rightly, I think, the U.S. is throwing the book at Tali-weasel John "Suleyman" Walker Lindh. The U.S. Department of Justice filed charges in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia today, with FBI agent Anne Asbury concluding:

16. Based on the foregoing, I have probable cause to believe that: (i) from in or about May 2001 through in or about December 2001, John Philip Walker Lindh, a/k/a "Suleyman al-Faris," a/k/a "Abdul Hamid," the defendant, while outside the United States, engaged in a conspiracy to kill nationals of the United States outside of the United States, namely, United States nationals engaged in the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 2332(b); (ii) from in or about March 2001 through in or about May 2001, John Philip Walker Lindh, a/k/a "Suleyman al-Faris," a/k/a "Abdul Hamid," the defendant, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, but outside of the jurisdiction of any particular state or district, unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly, provided material support and resources, as that term is defined in 18 U.S.C. § 2339A(b), to a foreign terrorist organization, namely, Harakat ul-Mujahideen ("HUM"), and attempted and conspired to do so, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 2339B and 2; (iii) from in or about May 2001, through in or about December 2001, John Philip Walker Lindh, a/k/a "Suleyman al-Faris," a/k/a "Abdul Hamid," the defendant, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, but outside of the jurisdiction of any particular state or district, unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly, provided material support and resources, as that term is defined in 18 U.S.C. § 2339A(b), to a foreign terrorist organization, namely, al Qaeda, and attempted and conspired to do so, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 2339B and 2; and (iv) from in or about May 2001, through in or about December 2001, outside of the jurisdiction of any particular state or district, John Philip Walker Lindh, a/k/a "Suleyman al-Faris,"a/k/a "Abdul Hamid," the defendant, being a United States person, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, willfully, and knowingly contributed goods and services to, and for the benefit of, the Taliban, and supplied directly and indirectly goods and services to the territory of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban and to the Taliban and to persons whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to 31 C.F.R. §545.201, in violation of of Title 31, Code of Federal Regulations, Sections 545.201 and 545.204, Executive Order # 13129, Title 50, United States Code, Sections 1702 and 1705, and Title 18, United States Code, Section 2.

MSNBC reports that Walker has thus avoided the death penalty so far, but faces life in prison. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:28:00 PM -- |    

 

Right on, Matt! I mean, er, Well said, Matt!
Matt Welch has posted an essay titled "Expatriates and War", about isolated opinion feedback loops on the left and elsewhere. He concludes:

Meanwhile, those throwing barbs at Berkeley had best beware: too much back-slapping among like-minded quasi-pundits on a hot streak can lead to the same distorted groupthink you criticize today. If you dismiss all noises coming from your left as the sound of crazy people, you'll be missing out on some valuable intelligence. Here's hoping the expat enclaves will rise to the occasion.

I also liked the "Damn, that used to be me" quote. Have a look. Berkeleyites etc. get their fair share of criticism, too, but that conclusion should be framed these days. I'm glad Matt's back, even if he can't link worth a hoot. posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:04:00 PM -- |    

 
Memorials should be symbolic
Steve Den Beste and others object to the firefighters statue envisioned to commemorate 9/11. That memorial is based on the photo of three firemen raising a flag over the ruins of the Trade Center, an image strongly reminiscent of the famous Iwo Jima memorial and photo. The objection comes because while the three firemen in the photo were white, current plans for the memorial envision a white, black, and Hispanic fireman in the same pose. This strikes Steve as overly politically correct:

This dishonors everyone involved; it sacrifices heroism on the altar of new-age liberal racial guilt.

If the memorial was supposed to just be about these three firemen, I'd agree. But it isn't. It's about the whole FDNY. Black, white, and Hispanic firemen died on 9/11. By the grace of God and good fortune, these three -- who happened to be white -- survived, found a flag, and raised it to commemorate their fallen brethren, not themselves. Had a black or Hispanic fireman been on hand, he or she would doubtless have lent a hand as well.

I'm a bit surprised Steve mentions the Iwo Jima photo and memorial in this context. These are examples of symbolism over accuracy as well -- with absolutely no denigration of the men memorialized. The works are no less poignant when you learn* that the first flag-raisers, cheered by Marines below, weren't in this photo, and that the actual taking of the Mt. Suribachi mountaintop was the least of the trials the Marines faced. The point was that a bitter battle had been fought (6,825 dead in a month, and another 19,000 wounded), the Marines had triumphed, and that any one Marine in a photograph was interchangeable with anyone else who endured or perished in that epic struggle. The photo was not about these Marines, it was about all Marines. Despite being "staged" in some degree, the photo and memorial display that idea perfectly.

A tragedy endured and ennobled, I think, should be the point of the firefighters' memorial as well -- endured and ennobled by all the firefighters, not just the three in the original photo. I can see no compelling reason to keep black and Hispanic firefighters out of that memorial, and plenty of good ones -- their fallen and living brothers -- to include them.


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*Flags of our Fathers, James Bradley, Ron Powers, ch.11, 12 and photos, p.184.

Update 11AM: Steve points out in an e-mail that the flag raising(s) occurred relatively early in the battle to take Iwo Jima, before all 6,825 of those deaths occurred. True. The point I meant is the point of the statue and photo to most viewers, or at least to me. They commemorate the whole battle, and all Marines, not day 4 of the battle and those six Marines, or the seven different ones who raised the first flag. I've also added a link about the first flag raisers: see the 2d photo on this page. posted by Thomas Nephew at 9:56:00 AM -- |    

 

Pet peeve: the fine art of linking
A number of bloggers, who I'll refer to as "Matt" and "Ken", have the habit of posting links that just send us to the page rather than to the right spot within the page. As I think most will agree, to do this with Glenn Reynolds posts is like saying "You'll find it in Texas somewhere." But it doesn't have to be this way.

"Matt's" article mentioning a Reynolds item just gets you close. My improved link takes you right to Glenn's article!

Another one mentioning a Tim Blair article gets you to the right week in Blair's oeuvre. My improved link takes you to the right minute! Presto!

An article by "Ken" has a link to a Charles Johnson post (about our good friends the Saudis) that just takes you to his blog home page. My improved link takes you right to a "good friends the Saudis" article!

But wait, you say; his point may have been that +/- every other "Little Green Footballs" post is about our good friends the Saudis, and that, I agree, is a Good Thing. Then consider Ken's item noting a Damian Penny sports comment, which just gets you close. My improved link takes you right to the post itself!

Of course this last example assumes "Ken" believes his readers are actually interested in the Lakers, the Raptors or the sport itself. Not all of them: my suggestion for pro basketball is to just give both teams 90 points and have them play 5 minute games. Same result, and you waste 12 times less time. The resources saved could be invested in worthwhile pursuits like football or baseball: everybody wins! But I digress.

The trick, of course, is to link to those "posted by __ on __" or "link" or "permalink" thingies under or over most articles, so that the end of the URL has a "#number". Same result, and 12 times less reader time wasted. "Matt", "Ken", all I ask is that you say, like Spock did in that evil alternate universe Star Trek episode: "I will consider it." And welcome home, Matt! Really. I was worried you wouldn't make it back before it was too late. posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:21:00 AM -- |    

 

Welcome B|Log Dateien visitors
An e-mail and new German-domain visitors tell me I'm registered with a German blog index, "B|Log Dateien." Welcome! Have a look around, and please feel free to e-mail me (link above the Statue of Liberty picture), or comment on individual posts by clicking the "comment" link below the post. If you'd like to zero in on posts about Germany, or that use German sources, you can search for them using the "Search" field in the left hand column, just over the "powered by Blogger" button. Because I'm lazy, I usually write Schroeder instead of Schröder, etc. Substituting a "*" works, i.e., "Schr*der" will find all web pages with that name. Here are some of the posts you might want to look at:

German publisher Rudolf Augstein to US, Israelis: drop dead (Jan 11, 2002)

German bloggers: an occasional series (Jan 9, 2002)

The world court of a hundred days, about a Josef Joffe article in Die Zeit (Dec 28, 2001)

Never give a pundit a reporter's job: Henryk Broder visits America (Dec 15, 2001)

German Greens convention supports deployment (November 25, 2001), with links to prior posts about the confidence vote (Vertrauensfrage) etc.

Newsrack takes on German newsweekly "Stern" (Nov 12, 2001)

...and, as we say here, much, much more! As the titles suggest, I'm often rather critical of some German opinions, although I've tried to identify Germans other than Schroeder and Fischer who I can agree with, too. Now you can be just as critical of me (or, if you like, you can tell me how brilliant I am). As I wrote in a comment once, I think German society is admirably sensitive to *internal* signs of fascism, intolerance, and excessive government powers. But I think German society shies away from thinking about militantly fighting *external* fascism and militarism. UN resolutions, negotiations, etc. don't cut it; sometimes you have to fight, even if you can't do it with immaculate concern for civilian lives. Thus, I think the U.S. fight against Al Qaeda has been necessary, just, and justly waged.

Very loose German translation follows:
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Ich sehe, dass ich jetzt bei "B|Log Dateien" registriert bin. Willkommen! E-mail (ueber den Foto) oder "comments" (unter jedem Artikel) sind erwuenscht. Falls ihr Artikel mit deutschen Themen oder Nachrichtenherkuenfte suchen wollt, koennt ihr die "Search" Feld unten links benutzen; wie ihr seht, verwende ich Umlauts nicht, weil ich faul bin, aber "Schr*der" klappt auch, wenn ihr den Namen suchen wollt. Oben sind einige Artikel spezifisch angegeben, fuer die sich deutsche Leser vielleicht interessieren koennten. Ich habe mich als pro-Fischer in der Datei angegeben, weil das stimmt, in so fern ich mich ueber ihn informieren kann. Wie die Titel verraten, finde ich oft deutsche Meinungen die ich "kritisch gegenueberstehe." Jetzt koennt ihr dasselbe mit mir machen, oder aber auch warme Freundschaftsbotschaften schicken. Wie ich in einem "comment" irgendwann sagte: Ich finde gut, dass Deutsche so auf ihre innenpolitische Gesundheit achten, aber ich finde auch, dass sie sich bis jetzt nicht besonders ueberlegt haben, wie man Faschismus, Militarismus, und gewalttaetiger Intoleranz auch aussenpolitisch bekaempfen muss, und das heisst nicht mit UNO-Beschluesse, sondern mit direkter Gewalt. Ich halte Al Qaeda fuer einen solchen Notfall.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 4:55:00 PM -- |