Joseph DeMartino wrote:
> On Sep 21, 10:50 pm, Elko T  wrote:
> 
> Dude, who pissed in your conflakes this week?

   Cornflakes, eww, I don't touch cereal with a barge pole. I generously 
leave them to you, pissed or not, as the case may be.


> Let's back the willfull misunderstanding bus up a few hundred yards,
> shall we, and dispense with terms line "blunders" and
"falsehood".  In
> return I will omit certain terms that come to mind when reading your
> posts.  (Which I do only with great difficulty.)

   You have difficulty reading? I sympathize. But yes, let's rewind, and 
we'll see that there /are/ some blunders, and not all are mine.


> 1)  None of the phrases under discussion here are meant to be taken
> literally and most people who aren't terminally-literal-minded
> understand that.  You should try spending more time with such
> people.
> 
> 2)  "The GDR is neither German, Democratic nor a Republic" was a Cold
> War play on the old Holy Roman Empire line, which was itself a
> political commentary offered in the form of a witticism.  That is to
> say, a *joke*.  As far as I know nobody in history ever misunderstood
> either phrase so completely as to think they had anything to say about
> the legal citizenship status of people living within the borders of
> either entity.  Well, until *you* got hold of them and decided to go
> into full-on "I'm offended" name-calling hysteria about the
"issue".

   Now who put salt in your coffee? Above doesn't make any sense. There 
was no ""I'm offended" name-calling hysteria about the
"issue""; I have 
no idea where you got that from. I reacted, to what turns out to be a 
lame joke, mistaking it for genuine belief. While the phrase about the 
Holy Roman Empire was clearly a sarcastic joke, because all of its 
components were in fact true, the case was different with the German 
one. It came across as a hostile jibe, exactly what it turns out it was. 
  And the fact that Duggy tried to defend the non-German-ness of the 
GDR, shows that not only I thought that you meant it.
   Again, to re-state the issue - the joke about the Holy Roman Empire 
works, because it was indeed neither of these. The GDR one doesn't, 
because it was, in fact, German, and I'm not really sure about it not 
being a republic.


> 3)  The GDR joke was coined by - wait for it - *Germans* on both sides
> of the Berlin Wall.  It was later picked up in the rest of the West,
> but it is absolutely typical of the kind of jokes that came out of the
> old Soviet Union and all of its satellites.  I first heard it (and
> many others) at dinner with some Iron Curtain refugees at the home of
> a State Department guy whose son was a college classmate of mine.

   I have no reason to doubt your story, but the setting only confirms 
my conclusion that it was not so much a joke, but rather a bitter, 
spiteful remark. You forget that I /grew up/ in that environment, and 
can tell the difference.


> 4)  You might consider switching to decaf.  Seriously.  You've spent
> days launching ridiculous personal attacks and insulting other members
> of the group over "blunders"  and "factual errors"
that is entirely
> imaginary and exists only in *your own head.*

   Personal attacks? Insulting? No such thing was intended. I believe 
Duggy took it in good humor, but if you decide to play it offended, 
there's nothing I can do.


> Cheerful regards,

   Straight cheers to you! Take it easy. :)

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