JFK

On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 11:13:46 -0700, "Keith McQueen"
wrote:

May he rest in peace.
Today is November 14, 2003. JFK was shot and killed on November 22, 1963.
Yeah. On November 22, 1963,

.... my mother was 13 years old. She doesn't dwell on the Kennedy's at
all. Why should anyone?

Rob

--
[You] don't make your kids P.C.-proof by keeping them
ignorant, you do it by helping them learn how to
educate themselves.

-- Orson Scott Card

On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 03:37:09 GMT, Robert Perkins
wrote:

Don't bet on it.

I just occured to me that that might not be a fair thing to say
without some context.

"Don't bet on it." No educated German or Austrian I've met knew German
grammar rules as well as someone who had studied the German language
as a native English speaker. English speakers have to learn German
grammar, since English grammar has fewer formal rules than German.
It's our *spelling* rules which take the cake.

But if what Martin means is that "Ich bin ein Berliner", in the
context of a political speech to a cheering crowd, is just as
understandable as "Ich bin Berliner", then he's right to say it's
correct stuff, since the discrepancy is so mind-bogglingly meaningless
that it's hard to believe I've written as much about it as I have.

IMO, Kennedy's enemies kept this one alive, probably only to embarrass
him. The Germans forgave him for being American before the word
"Berliner" was fully uttered.

Rob

--
[You] don't make your kids P.C.-proof by keeping them
ignorant, you do it by helping them learn how to
educate themselves.

-- Orson Scott Card

On Sun, 16 Nov 2003 21:59:57 -0500, "G.R. Patterson III"
wrote:

My brother and I were half lost, so I stopped a
young lady in a business suit (how they negotiate cobbled streets in 4" heels
is beyond me).

With precision. How else? (Some stereotypes are dead-on accurate; IMO
this is one of them.)

I excused myself and said in my atrocious accent "Wo ist die
neuer schloss?"

!! Oy. ;-)

Um, and, you forgot to capitalize the americanized 'r' sound in
'neuer'.

:-D

Rob

--
[You] don't make your kids P.C.-proof by keeping them
ignorant, you do it by helping them learn how to
educate themselves.

-- Orson Scott Card

Robert Perkins wrote:

On Sat, 15 Nov 2003 18:42:03 GMT, Philip Sondericker
wrote:


Berliner refers to a resident
of Berlin, just as a Hamburger is a denizen of Hamburg and a Frankfurter
resides in Frankfurt. Generally, these words are only funny to non-Germans
who haven't the slightest idea what they're talking about.


Germans simply don't form the sentence that way. The article "ein" is
superfluous in the context of identifying with a group.

Ich bin Sizilianerin.
Er ist Schweizer.
Sie sind Oesterreicher.

That's conversational German. Using the indefinite article would just
never come up in a spoken conversation, and I have participated in a
*lot* of German conversations.

You might hear the *definite* article from time to time, but it will
almost always come with a name, in the case of self-identification.

"Ich bin der Berliner, John Kennedy", and so forth.

True, but other situations where the article will appear is for emphasis
and when the term is not meant literally. For example, if I were a
politician, I would identify myself saying "Ich bin Politiker" but if
someone felt that I was acting in a politically motivated way they might
well say "Da bisst du ja ein Politiker." The latter phrase could be
translated as "You're acting like a politician." In Kennedy's case, either
of these could be justification for the inclusion of the article since he
was both emphasizing the unique nature of Berliners at the time and he
certainly wasn't speaking literally.

In any event, the phrasing is clearly not due to Kennedy directly but to
Robert Lochner, his interpreter who was educated in Berlin. And Kennedy
rehearsed the line with Willy Brandt (then Berlin mayor) just prior to his
speech. Apparently Willy saw nothing wrong with the phrasing. See:
http://clk.about.com/?zi=1/XJ&sdn=urbanlegends&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.geocities. com%2F%7Enewgeneration%2Fberliner.htm

in article , Robert Perkins at
wrote on 11/16/03 7:31 PM:



Hearing "Ich bin ein Schweizer" or anything like that is akin to
hearing a non English speaker say "I go today to get milk at store."
The English speaker would use gerunds.


But you'd still know what that non-English speaker was talking about,
wouldn't you? That's why all these posts arguing about whether or not
Kennedy really said "jelly donut" are so silly. Everybody KNEW what he
meant.

in article , Robert Perkins at
wrote on 11/16/03 7:53 PM:

The Germans forgave him for being American before the word
"Berliner" was fully uttered.

Rob

I think foreigners are so astonished whenever an American can utter more
than two words of their native language that they automatically forgive
minor grammatical errors.

On Sun, 16 Nov 2003 15:07:13 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:

We cried for many reasons.

I cried because I was five years old, and everyone around me was crying, and
I was scared.

Many cried for Jackie's anguish. And bravery.

Many cried at the sheer horror of seeing (in their mind's eye -- the
Zapruder film wouldn't be made public for years) a man's head blown apart on
a public street.

Many cried because they knew intuitively that the event marked a turning
point in our history, a loss of innocence. Never again would we see our
President as "one of us" -- rather, he would be made "one of them",
protected from "us" behind bullet-proof glass.

Never again could we look at political crowds in the same way, knowing that
there would always be Oswalds lurking in the shadows, with rifles. Because
of the lunatics and *******s amongst us, we would see no more top hats in
open carriages.

The national mourning for JFK that resonates till today had very little to
do with the man himself, IMHO.

Jay,
I am your age, less one year, and remember it as you, though not
as well as you.
As you said, when the story was told afterwards, it was the
bullet-proof glass which came after and separated us from our leaders
that cost us. (But why such dangerous politics?) We -did- hurt over
that, but I think there was more. We cried (we were shocked!) because
a king _was_ killed. We thought he was our king because we were a
'we' then, (or thought we were), and then in the following years we
weren't us anymore.
We thought he was our king, but he was not. He was their's, and
even now they continue to pretend as if he were our's, as if that were
even possible. That's part of the reason why there was trouble,
though it wasn't ours in the making -- unless we could be blamed for
his killing, for establishing them in office in the first place. But
could we be blamed for killing their king? (I write that believing it
were the commies who got to him, not 'us'. They had the grudge then.)
The question I haven't answered is who are 'they?' Those who
demand civil rights, where such rights (and most everything else) were
not of their own making, and could not have been.

.... Give credit where credit is due, and don't allow them to take it.
.... Ownership by demand is simply theft.
.... R-A-C-I-S-M, (look at it!) It cannot 'just go away.'

------------------------------------

Off-topic, back to on-topic...
I read this newsgroup almost everyday, though rarely posting. I do
have plans, but not yet a flyer. I read it because I am interested in
flight, but that would not keep me here. (It is not for it's in-depth
coverage of political issues. :') RAP is the clearest in
communication, most personable newsgroup at least that I'm aware of.
I like it, a lot. (But please keep those occasional Kennedy floods to
a minimum. I know, it isn't 'your' group. But at times it does seem
that way.)

Thanks,
Mike

"Robert Perkins" wrote in message
news

**sigh**

You've missed the point. It's not about language, it's about logic.

In article , "Tom S."
writes:


"Philip Sondericker" wrote in message
.. .
I think it gets LBJ's stamp. It was no coincidence that flight operations
were located in Texas.

LBJ, as probably the most corrupt president in our history, had it built in
Texas to pork barrel his buddies. That is pretty much beyond doubt.


That LBJ was at least the 2nd most corrupt President is probably true, and it
is also probably true that Mission Control was located in TX as pork.

But my NASA buddies (I am working about a mile from Langley at this moment)
tell me that LBJ's passion for the space program was genuine and that he was
responsible for persuading Kennedy to adopt the stated goal of the moon
landing in a decade.

It is probably the only noble thing he ever did.

--
Wm. Donald (Don) Tabor Jr., DDS
PP-ASEL
Chesapeake, VA - CPK, PVG

He signed the Civil Rights Act 1n 1964. That ranks pretty high on list of
noble deeds.

Michael


"Wdtabor" wrote in message
...
In article , "Tom S."

writes:

That LBJ was at least the 2nd most corrupt President is probably true, and
it
is also probably true that Mission Control was located in TX as pork.

But my NASA buddies (I am working about a mile from Langley at this
moment)
tell me that LBJ's passion for the space program was genuine and that he
was
responsible for persuading Kennedy to adopt the stated goal of the moon
landing in a decade.

It is probably the only noble thing he ever did.

--
Wm. Donald (Don) Tabor Jr., DDS
PP-ASEL
Chesapeake, VA - CPK, PVG