Well, there you go. I stand corrected, and I can see how "free and civilized" fit this particular situation better than "peaceful." The protesters felt "free" to put on hoods and beat up some policemen, and the police were too "civilized" to do anything about it. Your http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,2091636,00.html was very interesting. I continue to enjoy reading Ash. He reminds me of the old days when I was a liberal and everyone who at all sounded reasonable was too. We weren't particularly strident back then -- just reasonable. Lawrence ------------Original Message------------ From: "Judith Evans" <judithevans1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: Sat, Jun-2-2007 4:05 PM Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: German peacefulness >Ever since I read from Ash and heard from Andreas >that Germany is the most peacefullest place in the whole wide world, actually Ash wrote (according to your post in this thread) "The Germany in which this film was produced, in the early years of the twenty-first century, is one of the most free and civilized countries on earth" Andreas emphasized freedom. Nothing about "peacefullest", and not"the most". Mind you, I'd say "peaceful". Ash will be writing for The Guardian from the US for the next six months, here's his inaugural piece http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,2091636,00.html ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html