When I was in Berlin earlier this year I found painted bears scattered throughout the city.  Inside, outside, from 6 inches tall to 6 feet.  Some beckoned you into an establishment (like a pub).  A number were painted to represent different countries and the brotherhood between them.  Most just seemed to be displayed for fun.  I took lots of pictures, but I haven’t yet figured out what to do with them.  I put together a crude collage as a test drive of Adobe Photoshop CS2 (worked well on such a massive file!) but I’m still waiting for inspiration to strike me - perhaps a Photostory is a better way to display the collection…

Anyway, I wondered at the time what the meaning of all these psychedelically painted bears was.  One rather interesting explanation occurred to me - that Berlin is downplaying its place in some of the awful events of the 20th century.  Any tourists afraid of the (Nazi, Soviet) bear?  No need to worry, you can see the bear has been tamed into a colorful, friendly, and harmless cartoon.  Disneyification is the ultimate symbol of Westernization.