Posted on 11/30/2020 4:42:52 AM PST by MtnClimber
I have begun to feel as if I am back in East Germany. People are being indoctrinated into supine acceptance of top-down managerial policing by a political and financial elite
Crossing the rather grim Grenzübergangsstelle on my first visit to communist East Germany, two things struck me with uncommon force: the gun-emplacement towers every few kilometers along the Hanover-Berlin autobahn, and the comportment of East German drivers. The towers were certainly intimidating, constantly reminding us that we were at permanent risk and convincing us never to drive eccentrically or conspicuously.
But I found the conduct and “positioning” of drivers in their Trabants and Wartburgs even more disconcerting. I noticed that many of these drivers did not adopt the 10-2 grip on the wheel, and almost none practiced the more casual and relaxed one-handed style. Instead, they tended to place their wrists on the top of the steering wheel and let their hands hang limply behind it, like laundry on the line. An inveterate list-maker and note-taker, I began keeping count and found that of the 100 cars I tallied, 32 drivers exhibited this slack or droopy posture, as if they were somehow resigned, enervated and spiritless.
This was, for me, a kind of Joycean epiphany of what life in a socialist or communist regime must entail—it was all in the wrist. As Jan Morris wrote in Fifty Years of Europe, recounting her visit to East Germany,
“Travelling from west to east was like entering a drab and disturbing dream, peopled by all the ogres of totalitarianism, a half-lit world of shabby resentments, where anything could be done to you, I used to feel, without anybody ever hearing of it, and your every step was dogged by watchful eyes and mechanisms.”
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Argh, yes...my wife and I went there one weeknight many years ago after we got out of work, a 2 1/2 hour drive for a bowl of Portuguese soup (kale, potatoes, carrots, kidney beans, tomato and chorizo) and got there just in time to get in the door and get a bowl...my favorite soup...:)
They have always had a large homosexual community, but that is now apparently the main attraction.
We went there during the summer some years ago, and boy, was it a freak show. Hadn’t gone back after that except for an occasional drive through.
Yea P-Town is something else....
Been there a bunch of times.
VERY nice place.
I live South of Boston.
sick of the Cape been so much...i go to Maine now for the beach.
We go to the Cape in off season when nobody is there...:)
That soup sounds realllly good...
Must of tasted ten times better being the grand reward of such a distant journey.
We do that all the time with the Cape and Maine coast.
Go off season
Saves lots of $$$, have the place almost to yourself and still good restaurants to be found open.
Indoor pool is a plus but i also love the rustic approach too.
We are using things like VRBO to find places on the ocean up in Maine, and boy, do I love that. To me, being able to go out on a deck at night, have a beer and smoke my pipe is as good as it gets for me at my age now!
It costs more than a hotel or Bed and Breakfast, but...as I get older, I just enjoy that solitude and freedom renting a house gives.
Like Yogi Berra said
“That place is so crowded no one goes there anymore”
Actually, the Yogiisms made more sense than most of the garbage spoken these days....<: <: <:
How can anyone not love the legacy of Yogi Berra?
They broke the mold with him, no doubt...I just had to go refresh myself with few...:)
I had never heard of VRBO
thanks for that
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