Blog: benperry.net

The NYT's young Berlin bureau chief, Nicholas Kulish, sees a connection between Germany's refusal to pony up stimulus funds in proporition to the U.S. with a red line guarding a "barefoot zone" beyond which no shoes my trod. Everyone strictly obeys the line and grown men freeze in place when they see it, demonstrating a voluntary policing of the type you wouldn't likely see in Paris, let alone Rome. This collective sense of Ordung above all else is familiar to any non-German who has watched, baffled, as pedestrians line up at a red cross walk light [...]