Then I remembered to check my hotmail - gosh, we've known one another such a long time - and there it was, in the spam folder, as predicted.

<No doubt some tedious person will disagree...>

Aha- please email me from your G-MAN account then OK?

Then I can send you emails to the proper US Government address.

Well, yes, to be sure, and there's truth in the point about teaching history to avoid repeating it, but still -

<Dom: <I think the fear/catch-22 haunting many Germans is the notion that any form of 'pride' in German-ness -- even the artistic sublime -- leads somehow down the old road to Nazidom. They're afraid to have an ethnic identity, in case it turns atavistic -->>

Exactly my impression too - and I'd even go so far as saying that they are <ashamed> to have an ethnic identity, which may not be a bad thing per se, but they are not just ashamed, but painfully so. One German friend told me of how devastated she was when she, as a fairly young child, was confronted with the whole ugly baggage. Makes me feel bad for those kids, really.

Heh... ;)

He thought Hitler was very Austrian.

To be born questioning tribalism might be a blessing and boon.

For you or any else who might be interested, IMNSHO the most nuanced artistic treatment of the Holocaust is Syberberg's six hour and forty five minute "Hitler: Eine Film Aus Deutschland."

He attempts to explain how the sublimity of German Romanticism turned down the "wrong path," by marrying stunningly beautiful German music with puppet shows about Hitler and his friends.

I'm not sure this is a recommendation, but after ten minutes of this film you realize that you may as well turn it off, or keep watching it forever, over and over.

Either way...

He'd been travelling all over and I asked him whether or not he felt welcome in various European countries.

He said:

He also wasn't a Confederate spy, and he didn't spend any time in a mental hospital.

On the other hand, don't think of it as "owing" an email.

Just send me one word:

"Schach Platzen" for example, or something like that.

The trick is to get your new address in my hands, although if you dither too long I suspect <Annie> might rat you out.

She'd have to trust that I wouldn't sell your address to a Baptist Evangelical Mailing list. Which, oddly enough, is a distinct possibility.

Also, don't forget that it's me who owes you an email.

It's been so long I've accidentally memorized the last email you sent me.

On the other hand... this anecdote you just told of that 20 y/o - it sounds like a rebound / whiplash reaction, don't you think? You make these kids grow up with shame and guilt, isn't it almost predictable that eventually at least some of them will start resenting it?

Remember what we discussed about identity pride starting as a reactive measure.

<Jess: <The trick is to get your new address in my hands, although if you dither too long I suspect <Annie> might rat you out.>>

Although both of you should bear in mind that this would merely reinforce my stupid beliefs that *inactivity pays* and *inertia gets you to places that momentum can't even imagine*.

I'm lazy, in other words.

As for that musical klu, no chance. I'll call it a ♘

It's a ... it's Der Springer.

The limits of written discourse- I should have added this, although it's funny it never occurred to me, probably because I was right in front of him when he said it.

The young German lad (no younger than me actually) said this to me with gentle sadness, a kind of melancholic wistfulness.

He was in no way angry or resentful in tone when he told this to me.

He understood why he got this reaction in Europe. He was sad about it, mainly.

At any rate, we all had a fine time. He and his pal subsisted on heavily buttered white bread festooned with "sausage" slices.

I felt personally ashamed that Canadian "sausage" bore no resemblance of any kind to the actual "sausage" made in Germany.

They winced as they chewed.

This is one of the main themes of Spielberg's very fine film <Munich>.

The main character, an Israeli assassin, realizes that the Palestinian diaspora is no different, really, from the Jewish diaspora.

He also realizes that his mission actually engenders more of the same.

As he puts it, "For every one we kill, somebody even worse takes his place."

At the end, although born in Israel, he chooses self-exile.

Thanks for clarifying the context there. I misinterpreted the tone - although I think the point is still valid: there would be those who are saddened, and there would still surely be some who eventually rebel against being made to feel bad.

For that matter, I probably should have realized that anybody you trusted enough to let in the door would not be the second type. :)

But the second type is, in a way, understandable too. When you make people feel bad - for one thing, it's a self-defense mechanism to try to shed that bad feeling eventually... and for another, that's basically the same as other forms of discrimination - racism, sexism: forcing "inferiority" on people for who they were born to be, rather than anything they are personally responsible for, or can personally help.

(And I completely agree with the premise of <Munich> too, thanks for that also.)

Oh, but isn't there some logic to it? After all, everyone is directly descended from their parents. [state the obvious]. Those parents helped build the country - so they can be proud of that - and because the individuals are 'products' of them some pride and/or shame shines on the kids.

Moreover, if generation X screws up their finances, they will heavily hit, and alter the lives of, generation Y -- regardless of whether that is logical or 'fair'. Considering the weights of the previous generation have to be carried - is it not purely logical to be proud as well?. And in the progress develop nationalistic feelings?

Corporations? Nah. They'll just diversify to wet-weather products. Umbrella stock going up.

Governments? No hope. Too weak, and weather ignores frontiers.