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Monday, January 31, 2005

SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER

The Virginia Military Institute "has opened an investigation after photographs of some of its students posing in Nazi costumes and parodying gays were posted on a public website."

Let me ask a serious question, or three: If the VMI cadets dressed as devils, or kings, or gangsters, or Richard Nixon, would anyone mind? No? So what's the difference? Aren't devils a symbol of absolute evil? Haven't kings and gangsters committed more than their share of criminal atrocities?

Perhaps, we've simply reached a point where the "Nazi" has become a joke, ripe for parody, much like the gangster in his fedora and sharp suit. I'm ready to agree with Miriam; "On occasion this can be tasteless, but ridicule is not a bad way to strip the swastika of some of its malign power"

Certainly, anyone in the audience laughing at (former Jew) Mel Brooks and the Producers would agree.