[...snip!]
I used
http://world.altavista.com/ and trans'd it from German to English. It
is a very bad translation and does not compare to he fine job Bilgemaster
did, but it is enough to get the idea of the article.
=-=-=-=-
Here's a sample of their "translation" at
http://world.altavista.com/ of the
first several lines of that Stern article :
"They brake also for fish Damp-merry Autokorso with easy wave course. If the
American fans with their waterproof Amphicars from Germany in lake sting,
land rats captain play. An asterisk team along-swam Hazy, hot and humid -
3-H-Wetter call the Amis the high summer climate in the middle west, with
which vapor and heat put bleiern on the mind."
This reminds me of the results of a similar Russian computer translation
service I once used to write my wife a letter when she had gone back to
Moscow for a couple of months to visit her folks. I wrote: "Every evening I
rush home hoping to find your letter in the box." and the computer
"translated" it into the Russian equivalent of: "Whenever the darkness grows
I enter an olympic struggle to exhume your optician's eye chart.". And no,
I'm not kidding. I still suspect this may have something to do with my wife
perhaps suspecting that I am a much more poetic and sensitive soul than I
really am. A regular Pushkin, that's me.
So, Club membership definitely has its privileges, among them the ability
not to need to "put bleiern on the mind" over on "Lake Sting". To join the
Club, please visit
http://www.amphicar.com/join.htm . Special reduced rate
memberships are still available for the rest of 2001.
As for an "official Club reaction" to the article, I believe I agree with
Joel Stewart that the IAOC, perhaps in coordination with the Amphicar Club
Berlin e.V. (the German Amphicar Club, who from what I gather from recent
email rumblings yonder may be even more disappointed by the article's
shortcomings), should consider sending letters to the publisher and author
(that would be Hans-Robert Richarz, NOT J?rgen Gebhardt, as seems to be
generally believed--J?rgen was simply the photographer and has been nothing
but kind and forthcoming with the Club and its members, even offering his
photos to the Club for use on its website weeks prior to publication). Such
letters should perhaps voice disappointment that the article wasn't more
accurate, and that its casting of two of our members in a unfairly
unflattering and wholly inaccurate light (Joel and Hugh Gordon) was all the
more hurtful when one considers the extraordinary efforts our Club made to
specially accomodate Stern's team, an accommodation we will likely never
extend to them again.
To see the actual article and a human translation, please log in to Club's
Members Only area at
http://www.amphicar.com/memberslogin.html .
~Bilgemaster~