BNK, I would recommend going to Wikipedia and typing “racism” into the search box and click “Go”. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

Unless you’re implying that I hate white people, despite being white myself. Then your comment might make a tiny bit of sense.

And I got this reply: 

Robert, there are many types of “racism”. Your “Wikipedia” explains this if read far enough. “Racial discrimintaion”, a type of rasicm, “is treating people differently through a process of social division into catagories not necassarily related to race”.

In no way was I implying that you are white or any other, as my assumption based on merely a text or a name would reflect racism on my behalf. I am implying that your assumption that the RCMP as a whole is racist, catagorizes them based on your view, and is in itself a racist comment. 

…

So naturally being the asshole that I am I responded thusly:

So, do they also show the true side to police work, ie. the racism, murder of immigrants and violations of civil rights?

Which prompted this reply:

Talk about racism Robert, your comment reflects just exactly that! Your one sided view focused only on the negative side of things is as racist as it comes.

Wouldn’t it be a great world if we all were told the truth by one who knows how everything is, such as your self. Wouldn’t it be a great world if all could only see the flaws in humans, and never the good that they do in protecting our freedoms to enjoying a safe life? (in case your racism has clouded your thought process, I was being sarcastic on the last two sentences) 

Huh?

Start Point: Potsdamer Platz
End Point: Alexanderplatz
Approximate Length: 10.4km
District(s): Tiergarten, Kreuzberg, Friedrichshain, Mitte
Notable Sights: Potsdamer Platz, Mehringplatz, German Patent and Trade Mark Office, Holy Cross Church, Emmaus Church, Oberbaumbrücke, East Side Gallery, O₂ World, Strausberger Platz, Alexanderplatz

 

Start Point: Wullenwebersteg
End Point: Wullenwebersteg
Approximate Length: 13.6km
District(s): Moabit, Schöneberg, Tiergarten, Hansaviertel 
Notable Sights: Victory Column, Nordsternhaus, Rathaus Schöneberg, John F. Kennedy Platz, Rudolph-Wilde-Park, Village Church,  Königskolonnaden-Heinrich-von-Kleist-Park, Potsdamer Platz, Tiergarten

 

Start Point: S-Bahnhof Westend
End Point: Bahnhof Zoologischer Garten
Approximate Length: 6.4km
District(s): Charlottenburg
Notable Sights: Charlottenburg Palace, Saint Kamillus Church, Klausenerplatz, Schloßstraße, Lietzensee, Savignyplatz, Berlin Zoologischer Garten

 

Start Point: U-Bahnhof Spichernstraße
End Point: S-Bahnhof Hallensee
Approximate Length: 4.3km
District(s): Charlottenburg, Wilmersdorf, Hallensee
Notable Sights: The Kurfürstendamm, Olivaer Platz, Henriettenplatz

Since arriving in Berlin over 5 months ago I have been spending much of my time walking throughout Berlin’s various neighborhoods. After finishing my classes two weeks ago I have spent even more time attempting to walk Berlin’s city streets. I have decided that I should take a more systematic approach and thus I will post my walks here. My goal is to walk every street within Berlin’s S-Bahn ring. This is impossible, but it’s fun to have a goal. The photo above is my dry-erase map marking the streets I have walked as of February.

Germany held an election yesterday, though you might not have noticed if you don’t live there. I barely noticed, and I’ve been in Berlin for the past three weeks. True, there are posters of candidates’ faces on streetlamps around the city—charmingly un-slick posters like those of a race for county commissioner in central Ohio.

1. Though voter turnout is low, it was clearly evident. Television news covered it extensively and there are more posters per capita than in the United States.
2. There is absolutely nothing unslick about the posters here. Indeed they are better than American posters which inevitably are merely red, white and blue.

I keep wondering what happened to German nationalism. For about a century it was one of the most powerful forces in the world, a spirit of risk and command and achievement, pride and aggression, and, in the belief that such things never disappear entirely, I find myself looking for traces of it in unlikely places—bike lanes, for example. Berlin’s streets are almost everywhere lined with narrow red paths—brick or painted asphalt—that tell you a tall slender dirty-blond man in glasses, sitting very high on the seat, is bearing down on two wheels, bell madly clinking, and you’d better get the hell out of his way. Nothing is quite so withering as the icy glare of the indignant Berlin cyclist, and after a couple of incidents I learned to stay off the red paths.

3. German nationalism is alive and well. It’s just cultural nationalism.
4. It took more than one time to realize that you should stay off clearly marked bike paths?

If German nationalism has indeed been so tightly squeezed and pressed and bottled that the full might of it comes down to the jolly little phrase with which Germans bid one another goodbye (“Tschüss!,” or, more phonetically, “Chuz!”), it’s an extraordinary feat of self-suppression, and something for other peoples—yes, I’m thinking of my own chest-pounding countrymen—to emulate, not take advantage of.

5. What the fuck are you talking about?
6. “Tschüss” is not a phrase, it’s a word. And it’s rarely pronounced like “Chuz”, it’s generally pronounced “Chooss” and this is even more evident by the use of “tschüssi.”

 But as for the Germans in the audience, they were too polite to fight back…

7. It has nothing to do with politeness.