I was indeed referring to the tabloid material cited in the Guardian.

Regarding generalizations: I do believe there is such a thing as a National Character. You know, like the French are snobs, the English are repressed, Americans are philistines, Israelis are warlike, and Germans are….German.

I believe this is the result of culture, obviously, not genetics.

As for how long they will have to hear about Hitler….forever and a day.

I’m not Austrian, and ‘xenophobic’ is too strong — I guess I reacted because I thought it was a cheap shot. How long will they have to go on hearing about Hitler? Isn’t the news bad enough without pulling that out?

Usually I wouldn’t have responded but I guess I did since you were commenting elsewhere about a lack of commentors. And I do think humor can be found even in the macabre and politically incorrect (I just didn’t catch it in the blog entry), so then I thought maybe I was too harsh, and I threw in the other story and boy, did that ever not help. Although in my defense, if I’m supposed to see the humor in “First Hitler, now this” (assuming that you are not Austrian and hence out there with me on the thin ice) I think you could see the humor in what I posted. I am truly sorry if I offended you. Won’t happen again.

You certainly have plenty of company on the Hitler comparison, whether or not humor is intended.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/brendan_oneill/2008/05/a_nose_for_nazis_.html

Since you aren’t a member of the affected group, perhaps you are on thin ice when you tell the Jewish oven story.

I welcome any and all debate, Serpentine. But I’m wondering what first ticked you off…are you Austrian, or just sensing xenophobia?

As far as the above goes, my colleague (who was the instigator) found it funny, when she realized what she had said, she found it funny, they got married, I found it funny when told to me years later. And I’ve been in stand-up venues when black comics told lynch-mob jokes (mostly about the stupidity of the lynchers) and don’t feel bad that I laughed. I’m not sure I would try to own the same material (that’s a bit Michael Scott / The Office / Do you want a cookie?).

Serpentine, I am not convinced about your sense of humor, in fact I am quite worried about it. Do you have any jokes about negroes and lynch mobs?

To try to convince you I’m not utterly humorless, here is a story from a Jewish colleague, when he was not yet dating his future German wife. She is very sweet but not always the fastest to detect a joke. On arriving at a party at her apartment, he made a remark about not going in the kitchen “because I see you’ve got an oven in there”. She caught the reference but not the attempt at humor and mingling horrified tones with an attempt at reassurance blurted “Oh no – no – it’s just for cooking“.

Which made everyone feel much better.