Posted on 11/02/2010 1:02:07 AM PDT by Scanian
President Kennedy made one of his greatest speeches in Berlin. Some debate whether his German intonation was perfect -- "Ich bin ein Berliner" -- but the speech's venue certainly was perfect. Kennedy wanted a side-by-side comparison of limited government versus authoritarian government, and there was no better place to do that than in the artificially divided German city. The speech also employed powerful repetition: "Let them come to Berlin!"
Today, there are those who say that America has become more like the dysfunctional, oppressed East Berlin of 1963 than its efficient, free contemporary to the West. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman complained recently that America no longer seems to be able to get anything done. He's not sure why, but he suspects it's because Americans eat too many hamburgers.
Let him come to California. There is no physical wall in California -- not even on the Mexican border -- but there is a virtual wall. It is a wall of time that separates the state into two eras: before Jerry Brown and after Jerry Brown. Perhaps the best place to straddle that stark, trans-temporal barrier is on Yerba Buena Island, in the San Francisco Bay. It is the midpoint of the five-mile-long San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and the ideological equivalent of the Berlin Wall.
To the west is the magnificent double suspension bridge that was completed in 1936, just ten years after the California legislature created the Toll Bridge Authority to span the bay. When it was completed, it was the longest high-level steel bridge in the world and cost $77M, equivalent to $1.2B today.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
What Kennedy said was risible - it translates as “I am a sausage.”
He was just letting them know what we knew about all Demoocrats: he was a weenie.
Seriously, shouldn’t he have left off the “ein?”
“Ich bin Berliner?”
Or is that wrong also?
Had to check in on this thread: I was a Russian interpreter in Berlin in the 1960’s. While Kennedy’s turn of phrase later was technically mistranslated, the city was hugely friendly to the U.S. and everyone knew what he meant. They still gratefully remembered the airlift and the East Berlin/West Berlin contrast was striking.
“Ich bin ein Berliner” could be translated as “I am a doughnut.” There is a bit more archaic use of Berliner meaning a large rucksack.
“Ich bin Berliner” is correct.
Shalom b’Shem Y’shua
Exactly. Leave off the ein
Well, I guess that settles that.
Sha-alu Shalom Yirushalayim
He forgot to mention that before Brown, California produced more cars per year than anywhere in the world. Jerry drove them all out of state. But he did make the state an excellent breeding ground for the med-fly.
If this jerk gets elected the state will be bankrupt before his term ends.
Wow, I FEEL for you folks...
I don’t know what you can do as long as the “makers” keep leaving, with only “takers” being left behind.
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