Munich

In the year since the leaders of North America, Western Europe and Japan last assembled in London, the disintegration and disappearance of the Soviet Union has become one of the great events in world history. Now, as they meet again in Munich, their response to this seismic shift in the global power structure looks steadily more feeble and more fractured. The glue that was the Soviet military threat, that stirred the free world to greatness, has been replaced by the centrifugal forces of nationalism, isolationism and protectionism.

In disputing an article, follow these simple steps:  1. Call your opponent a name.  2. Refrain from addressing the original point. 3. Introduce an irrelevant subject.  4. Deny evidence.  5. (Optional) Do not trouble overmuch with spelling and grammar.    I am indebted to Oldcrowandwater, from whose comment on my post "The most famous umbrella since Neville Chamberlain went to Munich"  I was able to divine the essential steps: What a tool.

The public appetite for trivial distraction has always extended to our chief executives. I remember the minor uproar when Lyndon Johnson lifted a beagle by the ears. There was extensive commentary on Richard Nixon's taste for cottage cheese and ketchup.* And now there is some kind of disturbance in the Force because of a photograph of a Marine holding an umbrella above President Barack Obama. A friend and colleague commented on Facebook: " He couldn't find an intern to hold an umbrella?

The public appetite for trivial distraction has always extended to our chief executives. I remember the minor uproar when Lyndon Johnson lifted a beagle by the ears. There was extensive commentary on Richard Nixon's taste for cottage cheese and ketchup.* And now there is some kind of disturbance in the Force because of a photograph of a Marine holding an umbrella above President Barack Obama. A friend and colleague commented on Facebook: " He couldn't find an intern to hold an umbrella?

It's Oktoberfest time, which makes Munich, Germany, the place to be. This city near the foot of the Alps is the capital of Bavaria. The area is both historic and up-to-date, with glorious castles, tranquil lakes and a thriving technology sector. Here are five things to do: 1 Drink up at Oktoberfest : The world's largest beer festival (6.2 million people visited last year) runs through Oct. 5. It has more than 200 attractions and sideshows, brass bands galore and, of course, all the Bavarian sausage and beer you can eat and drink.

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin may not yet be the eighth member of the Group of Seven, but he figures to upstage his hosts at this week's economic summit in Munich. On the eve of the meeting of leaders from the world's richest democracies, he pressured the International Monetary Fund to open the door to a $24 billion economic support package. Then, with that in hand, he arranged to arrive in Munich early enough to wangle an invitation to dinner tonight ahead of his scheduled post-summit lunch tomorrow.

What if they had held the Munich summit and there was no Russia with tin cup in hand, no Yugoslavia falling apart in bloody civil war? The Group of Seven leaders of the world's richest and mightiest industrial democracies would have had nothing to show for their efforts. They could not agree how to spur their recession-plagued economies or break the six-year impasse on negotiations for a new world trade system.The fact is that Russian President Boris Yeltsin not only stole the Munich conference; he saved it. By barging in early and getting on a first name with George and Helmut and Francois and the other poobahs, he was a flashy Group of One. He gave his hosts a chance to formally open the door for a $24 billion bailout package and startled everyone by offering to sell off part of the Russian patrimony -- oil reserves, factories, buildings -- in exchange for debt relief and huge inflows of private capital.

THAT NEW world order George Bush speaks so glowingly about is beginning to look suspiciously like 1938.Once again an unprincipled aggressor covets a neighboring piece of real estate. Once again he seeks to rally a great people behind him, playing on its deepest grievances, nursing its pet hatreds, invading and destroying without fear of disPaulGreenbergsent in his police state of a country.The world responds only slowly, uncertainly, indecisively. It talks but hesitates to act. Anger and resolution give way to acceptance and fear.

Munich opened its $5.5 billion Franz Josef Strauss Airport earlier this month to mixed reviews. The facility replaces the old airport inaugurated in 1939 by the Nazi Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goring.The design uses a system of "passenger modules" that limits the walking distance between the point of arrival at the terminal and the boarding ramps to 165 feet; the distance is longer for those transferring between planes or arriving on the S-Bahn regional train.However, road access from the city to the new airport, almost 18 miles northeast of downtown, is on a stretch of the Autobahn that is the most congested in Bavaria, especially during morning and afternoon rush hours.

Washington. -- Is it impossible for people to learn from the experience of others, for one generation to learn from those who came before? Have the leaders of the Western world already forgotten the famous lessons of the century -- Munich and Vietnam?There are no perfect historical analogies. No time, place or circumstance is quite like any other. But personality types and patterns of behavior recur, and this makes the lessons of one period relevant and useful to the problems of the next: as the experience of Munich relates to Bosnia, for example.

Besides drinking beer, there are two other pastimes that Bavarians love: driving and sport-shooting, including hunting. Bavarians build BMW's "Ultimate Driving Machines. " Bavarians' national dress is hunter green. No one who visits Munich is likely to miss the German Hunting and Fishing Museum in the middle of the main shopping street. When in Munich, I saw the world's best-known opera devoted to shooting and hunting, Carl Maria von Weber's " Der Freischütz " ("The Marksman"), with its unforgettable Hunters' Chorus singing, "What on earth can equal the pleasure of hunting?"

Bonnie Branch Middle School eighth-graders Nick Kundrat and Matt Yagel point to a bar graph made for their school project examining security at the 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich, Germany, which ended with 11 athletes killed. The graph illustrates the amount of money spent on security for the 2004 Summer Games in Athens ($600 million) with a large vertical rectangle. The amount of security spent on the Munich Games ($2 million) is represented with a hairline sliver. "You can barely see the line for the Munich Olympics," said Matt, 14, who along with Nick crafted the project, "The Munich Massacre: Revolution of the Games.

Knorr Brake Corporation on Wednesday, Jan. 18, broke ground on the company's new manufacturing facility in the Westminster Technology Park in Westminster. This new facility will double the existing size of Knorr's manufacturing capabilities in Carroll County, from 120,000 square feet to 236,000 square feet of space. Knorr is a manufacturer of braking, door and HVAC systems for mass transit vehicles. Company officials said that an influx of new orders, primarily from a new series of rail cars for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, along with other increased business, is driving the expansion.

Bedford Groves, a retired Washington College administrator who earned two Purple Hearts in the infantry during World War II, died of heart disease March 15 at Chester River Manor. He was 90 and lived in Chestertown. He was born on a farm at Turners Creek near Kennedyville on the Eastern Shore. His father died when he was 14. To help support his six sisters and mother, he worked on a neighbor's farm in the early morning and hitchhiked to Chestertown High School, where he graduated in 1937.

December 1960 was a memorable month for disasters. On Dec. 16, United Airlines Flight 826 from Chicago was headed for Idlewild Airport, now John F. Kennedy International, when it collided over New York City with Trans World Airways Flight 266, which had originated in Dayton, Ohio, and was preparing to land at LaGuardia. The spectacular daytime collision, which occurred while it was raining, sleeting and slightly foggy, sent debris and death into Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood.

MUNICH - John Demjanjuk sat in a wheelchair wrapped in a light blue blanket, his eyes closed and his face pale as his trial opened Monday on charges he helped kill 27,900 Jews as a Nazi death camp guard. Lawyers for the retired Ohio autoworker portrayed him as a victim - of the Nazis and misguided German justice. But three German doctors testified the Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk was fit to stand trial. Wearing a blue baseball cap, Demjanjuk, 89, was wheeled in to the packed Munich state court and did not answer when presiding judge Ralph Alt asked if he could answer basic questions about himself.

MUNICH, Germany -- For the worried Munich city welfare official, it was one more piece of bad news.The rise in the number of foreigners seeking political asylum in Germany had reached a point where the already overcrowded Bavarian capital would have to house new arrivals at a rate of 250 a week instead of the previous 150."Where are they going to go?" asked the official, Hans Stuetzle, director of the social affairs department of the Munich city government.For some, the answer was already clear: They were going to one of 43 transport containers sitting in a corner of the city's famous Oktoberfest grounds.

MUNICH, Germany - Here where Joseph Ratzinger once presided as archbishop and later cardinal, people say his elevation to Pope Benedict XVI is a cause for celebration. But then, the people of Munich think that pretty much everything is a cause for celebration. They seem to like nothing better than festivals and holidays. Many of these events revolve around a single theme. There are, for example, the Festival of Strong Beer, the May Bock Beer Festival and, of course, the sausage-and-brew extravaganza, Oktoberfest.

What Bavarian city, Germany's third largest, is home to the Oktoberfest beer festival? ANSWER: Munich