http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2969906Oh my.
It turned deadly silent on Skins's island during the night, all the primitives languishing around in a state of taciturn malaise.
One has to dig, and dig deep, to find anything interesting.
Cyrano (1000+ posts) Thu Mar-06-08 10:10 PM
Original message
Did JFK say "I am a Jelly donut?"
"Ich bin ein Berliner."
When John F. Kennedy gave his speech in Berlin in 1963, he said in German: "Ich bin ein Berliner."
The translations on goggle and elsewhere are not definitive.
He either said: "I am a Berliner." or "I am a jelly donut."
Is there anyone here fluent in German who can defintively interpret what he said?
melody (1000+ posts) Thu Mar-06-08 10:13 PM
Response to Original message
3. Yes, he said "I am a jelly donut" but then many foreign dignitaries have made similar gaffes
There is a page of them somewhere. They're quite funny. Human beings are human beings. People wanting
to denigrate Americans as a people reach for that kind of crap.
Uh.....
.....oh, never mind.
aint_no_life_nowhere (1000+ posts) Fri Mar-07-08 12:14 AM
Response to Reply #3
32. Here's a list of U.S. Presidential gaffes
I remember cracking up over a visit Jimmy Carter made to Poland during his Presidency. Apparently, his translator made a mistake when Carter said "I understand your anxiety" to the Polish people. The translator told the people of Poland that Carter said "I desire you sexually".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._presidential_...
whereismyparty (1000+ posts) Fri Mar-07-08 12:53 AM
Response to Reply #3
37. I am fluent in German and lived much of my life in Berlin.
The sentence has a double-meaning. My best friend was there with his parents when Kennedy made that speech. He said people joked about the double-meaning but that all Berliners knew what Kennedy was really saying. He was deeply loved by the Berliners. The Luftbruecke was an amazing military and human success story. Berliners still talk about it with real feeling. It's one of our greatest Cold War military campaigns and one every child in America should know about. Unfortunately, no one does.
"Ich bin ein Berliner" is a great line. Understand what was going on in Berlin around the time Kennedy made that speech and you will feel a surge of American pride you haven't felt in a long time.
melody (1000+ posts) Fri Mar-07-08 08:55 AM
Response to Reply #37
42. Tell that to UK comic Eddie Izzard - he has a 10 minute riff making fun of him for it
But then Izzard is a Brit who hates Americans, so he'd have a different take.
truebrit71 (1000+ posts) Fri Mar-07-08 09:58 AM
Response to Reply #42
52. Wow...wrong much? He "hates Americans"? Really? Maybe just the stupid ****ers...
...but no, he is quite fond of America and Americans...it's the STUPID ones he can't stand...
One supposes, just like franksolich can't stand stupid Brits, such as the truebrit primitive and the leftistbrit primitive and EarlG Lord Marblehead. It works both ways.
melody (1000+ posts) Fri Mar-07-08 02:08 PM
Response to Reply #52
58. No, he goes on and on about "Americans" ... he makes no distinctions in his stand-up
It's a lot of "you people" and that sort of thing. He also privately said to my friend's agent,
when they were all at the Comedy Club, that his only country was Europe and he celebrated the end of the
USA. The USA is my country and we've not been "all bad" any more than Europe has been.
He sounds like a bigot to me. Sorry, but he does. If he's not, then I stand corrected, but he sounds
as bigoted about Americans as some idiots in my family are about French people.
EOTE (1000+ posts) Fri Mar-07-08 02:51 PM
Response to Reply #58
61. Eddie Izzard thinks that Europe is a country?
Then he has some nerve talking about "stupid Americans". He'd make good friends with Kelly Pickler.
melody (1000+ posts) Fri Mar-07-08 03:17 PM
Response to Reply #61
65. His view is that the EU is one country -- it's a popular view among the European left
Primates pack up against perceived enemies ... it's the way the globalists keep us fighting with each other.
They've made (with the Bush family's help) the US the great Satan and in comes Globalist-manipulated Europe
to save the world. Tis a very old plan to crush us come to fruition.
truebrit71 (1000+ posts) Fri Mar-07-08 03:47 PM
Response to Reply #65
71. That too is total bollocks...
...but there you go...
BTW when he spoke to my friend's agent he said how much he loved America but could never get his head around the duality of the American persona...fearsome democracy loving at one end, and fearsome ignorant warrior at the other..
YOUR twisted views about him and Europeans in general is very bloody clear however...
melody (1000+ posts) Fri Mar-07-08 04:13 PM
Response to Reply #71
72. I love Europeans - I am one
Other than the quarter of me that's Cherokee, all my people come from the UK. I have a great deal of affection
for Europeans, but I'm also quite familiar with the evil you have growing there which is heavily entrenched with
our own Bush-league monsters.
Unfortunately, your depiction of "the American persona" (which does not exist, except for some fiction in
the minds of others) shows me you agree with Izzard. I'm not surprised you agree with him.
Who is your friend's agent? Ach, that's right, you were just pulling that out of your ear to shoot me down
because you don't want to believe one of those people with an evil American "persona".
truebrit71 (1000+ posts) Fri Mar-07-08 04:28 PM
Response to Reply #72
79. I am a Brit, I have lived in the US for over half my life...tell me again How I don't know anything
..about America...
Alas, this is a very large bonfire, but alas for Oscar Wilde, the primitives continue paying no attention, no attention at all, to his question, instead engaging in acrimony and hostility about some obscure British "comedian."
But hey, this is the "best" one can find on Skins's island this morning.
