March 2003

I’m about 1/3 through reading Der Brand, the historical account of ‘Germany in the bombing war 1940-1945′. I’ve finished the first two sections entitled ‘Waffe’ and ‘Strategie’. Since a couple of readers have mentioned that they will be reading it as well, I’ll give my impressions so far.

This book looks at the bombing from the [...]

Today the police action from Monday appears in a better light. The police apparently warned demonstrators for 20 minutes that water cannons would be used before breaking up the protest. The Abendblatt reports that only two official complaints of police misconduct have been filed. Meanwhile, official investigations have been launched… both into the police action [...]

As is befitting my mood on the pending war in Iraq, I’ve starting reading Der Brand (The Fire), the account by historian Jörg Friedrich of the Allied bombing of German cities in World War II (mentioned this past weekend in the NY Times). The book has been controversial outside Gemany for supposedly implying that the [...]

Seeing as my wife and I met as exchange students in high school, I had to check out the Spiegel Online article on mobbing against German exchange students. They interviewed several German students in rural America who have met hostility to Germany’s and their own personal anti-war beliefs. Back in 1980 Mama was branded as [...]

Call me gruesome, but when I heard yesterday that the actor Horst Buchholz had died, my first thought was the hope that the frantic Billy Wilder comedy One, Two, Three (1961), starring Buchholz and James Cagney, would be televised. Sure enough, it’s showing right now on BR.

OK, the film mostly stars Cagney, as a hyperactive [...]

In a response to Andrew Sullivan, Amiland today reminded that whatever Schröder’s policy on Iraq is today, two years ago he put his own government on the line to support Enduring Freedom. That reminded me of the remark by Joshua Micah Marshall a couple of weeks ago that the US routed around NATO when [...]