Günter Grass has it all: That fat and sassy moral high ground he’s king of the hill of, that left-wing obsession for defending brutal regimes in the name of “world peace,” that Nobel Prize for literature and that SPD party membership book (I’m not sure which one gives him more legitimacy here).
But above all else, he’s got that which all successful peacenik artists and Künstler the world over must invariably have: That inability to keep their mouths shut when it comes to addressing issues they clearly know nothing about.
At the moment Grass is worried about how “the nuclear power Israel is endangering the already fragile world peace” (think Iran) and has written a shockingly predictable poem about it. It must be a real humdinger, too, but to be fair I must admit that I haven’t read it yet and most certainly never will because I’m waiting to read his poem about Iran’s threat to world peace first. I assume that he will publish that one next week, but you know what they say about when you assume things… Blah, blah, blah. Meet the new school. Same as the old school.
Israel currently has three Dolphin submarines from Germany – one half-funded and two entirely funded by Berlin – two more are currently under construction, and the contract for a sixth submarine was signed last month. Dolphin-class submarines can carry nuclear-tipped missiles, but there is no evidence Israel has armed them with such weapons.
I’ve been following the forum discussions about Grass’s latest little tin drum over at Die Zeit. The editors over there are working overtime trying to remove the unsavory comments, it seems. You gotta love it. There’s something so German about the Zeit editors and their responses:
Entfernt, da unsachlich.
Entfernt. Gerade Kritik sollte sachlich begründet sein.
Entfernt. Bitte tragen Sie mit sachlichen Argumenten zur Debatte bei
Really? Is there a special slide-rule formula to assess whether something is “sachlich” or not? And who would think that a forum should only be a collection of “sachlich” statements? Are the Zeit editors simply removing comments they don’t like by saying they’re not factual?
Hey, facts are indeed important in discussions (and discussions about if and how something is factual), but are debates really just a string of factual statements?
This is a fact: Guenter was a young killer in the Waffen SS during the end of the war.
Also a fact: Guenter used to troll for GI’s at Berlin’s Amerikahaus during the 60’s. (Unclear whether is motive was sexual or cultural curiosity). Despite Guenter hanging around Amerikahaus, his anti U.S. rhetoric would make any card carrying SDP member proud.
He’s 84 and he chain smokes. Call me morbid, but I think he’s more interested in keeping people from asking in his remaining years just why it is that he appeared to be doing the Stasi’s bidding without taking a pfennig from them for all of those years.
Observing Hermann 
I’ve been following the forum discussions about Grass’s latest little tin drum over at Die Zeit. The editors over there are working overtime trying to remove the unsavory comments, it seems. You gotta love it. There’s something so German about the Zeit editors and their responses:
Entfernt, da unsachlich.
Entfernt. Gerade Kritik sollte sachlich begründet sein.
Entfernt. Bitte tragen Sie mit sachlichen Argumenten zur Debatte bei
Really? Is there a special slide-rule formula to assess whether something is “sachlich” or not? And who would think that a forum should only be a collection of “sachlich” statements? Are the Zeit editors simply removing comments they don’t like by saying they’re not factual?
Hey, facts are indeed important in discussions (and discussions about if and how something is factual), but are debates really just a string of factual statements?
This is a fact: Guenter was a young killer in the Waffen SS during the end of the war.
Also a fact: Guenter used to troll for GI’s at Berlin’s Amerikahaus during the 60’s. (Unclear whether is motive was sexual or cultural curiosity). Despite Guenter hanging around Amerikahaus, his anti U.S. rhetoric would make any card carrying SDP member proud.
He’s 84 and he chain smokes. Call me morbid, but I think he’s more interested in keeping people from asking in his remaining years just why it is that he appeared to be doing the Stasi’s bidding without taking a pfennig from them for all of those years.