XPost: soc.culture.france, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   From: email@below.the_text   
      
   LET 'EM EAT WURST   
      
   By RALPH PETERS   
      
   July 13, 2003 -- MY heart breaks: Sniffing in Teutonic superiority,   
   German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has cancelled his Italian   
   vacation!   
      
   Apart from the fact that Italy, the home of grace and beauty, doesn't   
   need any more loud, fat krauts polluting its environment, there's an   
   even more important matter involved: Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi   
   doesn't take any crap from Eurocrats and the self-righteous sons and   
   daughters of the SS.   
      
   Informed that Germany's answer to Bill Clinton wasn't going to grace   
   bella Italia with his presence this year, Super-Silvio shrugged and   
   said, "Too bad for him."   
      
   Berlusconi nailed it. An embarrassing not-quite-secret is that German   
   politicians can't wait to abandon Deutschland for vacations in Tuscany   
   or Umbria. (Schroeder's foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, almost   
   qualifies for Italian citizenship.) Yet the Germans remain deeply   
   bigoted toward Italians (and toward all Europeans who live south of   
   the Alps - "Not our kind, Dahhling . . .").   
      
   Forget the fact that the German contribution to the Renaissance was   
   the realization that you could fit more beer in a bigger mug. The   
   Germans still regard Italians as Untermenschen, fit to run a   
   neighborhood pizzeria, but not to have an equal say in the future of   
   Europe.   
      
   Berlusconi isn't playing along. The Italian prime minister isn't a   
   member of the snitty little club of European politicians who spend   
   their adult lives commuting between Brussels, Strasbourg and their own   
   capitals. He comes from the business world, where men and women   
   actually have to accomplish things. And Super-Silvio accomplished   
   plenty.   
      
   Berlusconi is also a refreshingly direct man who speaks his mind (no   
   wonder he and President Bush get along). After 9/11, he broke a   
   European taboo and suggested that Arab religious extremists might be   
   partly to blame for terrorism. Of course, he was jeered at by all the   
   café dwellers wrinkling their precious little brows along the banks of   
   the Seine or the Spree.   
      
   More recently, after being needled by a member of Germany's Green   
   Party (a German Green is a Gestapo wannabe with a red paint-job),   
   Berlusconi put on that I-know-how-to-earn-my-own-living-and-you-don't   
   smirk that drives the Eurocrats nuts. And he suggested that his German   
   colleague might be better employed playing a concentration camp guard   
   in a movie currently being filmed about the Nazi era.   
      
   All of northern Europe - well, the politicians and bureaucrats, anyway   
   - was mortified. You see, one of the elementary rules of the European   
   Union is that Germans can never be called "Nazis."   
      
   It's just fine for Germans to call Prime Minister Sharon or President   
   Bush a Nazi - that's not name-calling, it's legitimate political   
   speech. But for an Italian to compare a German political hack to a   
   Nazi? Mais non, monsieur! Nein!   
      
   Who says European culture isn't entertaining anymore?   
      
   Well, there was a great deal of back-and-forth, with the grown-up   
   Italians trying to offer the little German babies a few verbal   
   pacifiers. (One Italian undersecretary even resigned after telling   
   some impolite truths about the Germans.) But when the German and   
   French apparatchiks coiled around each other and insisted that   
   Berlusconi's remark proved he wasn't fit to serve out Italy's present   
   six-month turn in the EU presidency, the Italians finally had enough.   
      
   The message was clear: Ain't nobody down in the Tuscan hills forcing   
   Fritz and Frieda to drink their 1997 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva.   
   And Italians aren't going to put up with that Aryan superiority   
   complex anymore.   
      
   Poor Gerhard may have to settle for that incomparable paradise on   
   earth, Dusseldorf in July.   
      
   Of course, other Germans will continue to flock to Italy. And, just   
   now, with tourism down world-wide, the Italian hospitality industry   
   can use the business. So the elegant Italians just have to grit their   
   teeth as Hans and Hilda slop marinara sauce over the shirts they've   
   both worn for three days running, argue about the bill, then skip the   
   tip.   
      
   But, in the long run, when the tourist industry picks up again and   
   more Americans - grateful for all that Italy has given us - return to   
   bella Italia, perhaps more Italian hotel and restaurant owners can   
   subtly let Fabulous Fritz know that there's no room at the inn for   
   anybody who shows up wearing Jesus boots (that combination of sandals   
   and dark wool socks so beloved by northern Europeans).   
      
   Think it won't happen? Think again. Let me share two incidents from   
   the family travel diary.   
      
   Several years ago, in Verona, I made the mistake of speaking German to   
   a companion as we entered a restaurant. The manager swiftly informed   
   us that there were no more tables. When I expressed my regret in   
   broken Italian and English, his expression changed entirely. After   
   asking if I was American, he apologized and seated us at a perfect   
   table, then sent over a special wine for us to try.   
      
   Over the decades, Americans have turned into pretty sophisticated   
   travelers. We're no longer the noisiest or the most demanding. On the   
   contrary, we're friendly and really want to appreciate what foreign   
   countries have that we don't. If anything, we apologize too much.   
      
   Last month, my wife and I went back to Rome, one of the world's   
   greatest cities - ranking right between Manhattan and (God, I hate to   
   admit this) Paris. And my long-standing belief that the Ugly American   
   has long since given way to the Ugly German was confirmed in spades.   
      
   I'll never forget sitting with the love of my life over drinks on the   
   Piazza Navona in the late afternoon light, enjoying each other's   
   company and people-watching, when a German couple seized the table   
   next to us, ignoring the host's greeting and cramming their abundant   
   bodies against us under a cloud of cigarette smoke.   
      
   The grunting, barking duo were a mockery of all things decent about   
   humankind. The woman, about 60 and grotesquely fat, wore a skimpy   
   Shakira halter top and short-shorts. Her appearance was a crime   
   against humanity, far too gross for an old Fellini film. I still have   
   nightmares.   
      
   And horrible Hermann - in his Jesus boots - gave orders in the same   
   voice that Obersturmbahnfuehrer Schultz must have used in Rome 60   
   years ago.   
      
   And they both smelled. Master race, my Schickelgruber.   
      
   I don't think Italy is going to miss Gerhard Schroeder. Maestro   
   Berlusconi's outburst did his country a great service. It was an act   
   of purification.   
      
   Ciao, bella Italia!   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)