Another reason why t's 'irony' doesn't work is that, in its resolute disregard of the referent (the deaths & expulsions of the Serbs and Roma, the threatened lynchings of the anti-KLA Albanians, etc.) of the story (in favor of paying attention to how the story is told and that only), it fails to be equal to the reality to which the Guardian article stood as one response (among many others). Let us have another look at t's 'irony':
>> ***** Hate-filled town where Hitler gets a laugh
>
>> Emin Xhinovci may be an eccentric, but he typifies a place where speaking
>> the wrong language can be fatal Kosovo: special report
>
>[translated: since this is a human interest story, i'll talk about
>a freak *as though he's normal*. that always works!]
>
>> Meeting Emin Xhinovci for the first time, one's laughter is mixed with
>> horror at how Adolf Hitler's double could be walking around this ethnically
>> divided and explosive town in northern Kosovo. It is as if the nightmarish
>> film The Boys from Brazil has come true, where clones of Hitler are
>> manufactured from cells preserved from the dead Führer.
>
>[translated: by invoking a surreal movie, i'll avoid being forced
>to admit that if the guy lived in the US or the UK he'd make a
>living doing pretty much the same thing--a hitler lookalike.]
>
>> Mr Xhinovci, 40, might be an eccentric but his face, which evokes friendly
>> waves and giggling salutes from ethnic Albanians in the southern half of
>> Mitrovice, symbolises the continuance of virulent ethnic intolerance. The
>> kind of intolerance which led to the murder of a United Nations official
>> who answered in Serbian when asked the time by a group of ethnic Albanian
>> youths late on Monday.
>
>[translated: people joking with a neighborhood crank isn't a story,
>so i'll just sweep aside the complexities of this curious situation
>(he kid, quit laughing, i'm a serious journalist!) by saying they
>'symbolize' what everyone wants to hear about.]
>
>> The doppelganger was until recently a guerrilla with the recently disbanded
>> Kosovo Liberation Army, where he won a reputation as a fierce fighter who
>> commanded real respect among the ethnic Albanian locals. "I am a soldier,"
>> he says simply, echoing Hitler's pride in the Iron Cross the Austrian
>> corporal was decorated with in the first world war.
>
>[translated: ditto for 'echoing.' ooh, and i get to used 'doppel-
>ganger' too... bonus point!]
>
>> Mr Xhinovci has opened a bar in Mitrovice known variously as the Bar Hit
>> and Jet, or the Pizzeria Hitleri. He complains that French Nato troops
>> removed a sign which carried a badly painted swastika. A disgusted French
>> captain says only that his troops are absolutely forbidden to frequent the
>> bar, its simple interior decorated with portraits of the owner in KLA
>> uniform.
>
>[translated: i can't figure out *what* is going on here...]
>
>> Mr Xhinovci has taken great pains to enhance his physical likeness to
>> Hitler. His black toothbrush moustache is neatly clipped. His hair is dyed
>> jet black, cut and combed in perfect imitation of the lick of tar-like hair
>> that fell across the Nazi dictator's forehead. Otherwise his purple suit,
>> greasy white shirt and string vest are testament to his breathtaking
>> ordinariness.
>
>[translated: purple suit? string vest? he's just a boring old
>crank... i came all the way to this god-forsaken town for this
>crap?]
>
>> "Zum voll!", he says, toasting in German - he lived near Düsseldorf from
>> 1993 to 1997, where he said he had an import-export business before
>> returning to fight for the "motherland". "Everyone who is against the
>> people who carried out the bloodshed against my people is a friend of
>> mine," he says.
>
>[translated: he's a polyglotic petit bourgeois with absolutely
>boringly normal thoughts about the last year. i'd better spice
>this story up pronto--how about some history?]
>
>> He refers to the brutal Nazi occupation of the former Yugoslavia, when
>> German troops based in Mitrovice turned a blind eye to ethnic Albanian
>> attacks on Serb homes. The occupation ran concurrently with a bitter and
>> confusing civil war, in which ethnic Albanians fought both as communist
>> partisans and as members of the Skanderberg Division of the Waffen SS,
>> formed from ethnic Albanians when Hitler began losing the war.
>
>[translated: and he said something mundane about YU history.]
>
>> Memories are long in the Balkans and the fact that there is an admirer of
>> Hitler in Mitrovice will not surprise the sullen Serbs, some of whom are
>> suspected paramilitaries who carry walkie-talkies and hang out in the Dolce
>> Vita bar, just across the Ibar river, where they watch the bridge to make
>> sure no ethnic Albanians return to the northern, Serb, half of the city.
>
>[translated: i'll make the beliefs of the deluded into a
>rhetorically contingent 'fact'! heh... fools em every time.]
>
>> A non-smoker like Hitler, Mr Xhinovci says the dictator went too far in
>> killing women and children, but that it would be "a good idea to eliminate
>> all those who thirst for our blood" - his catch-all phrase for Serbs.
>
>[translated: when the guy opens his mouth he sounds like every-
>one else in this shithole--so i'll find some way he's 'like'
>hitler... hm, hey--he doesn't smoke!]
>
>> The extremists in Kosovo do not have to look like Mr Xhinovci to be
>> effective in clearing the province of its ethnic minorities. There are near
>> daily attacks on and murders of Serbs and Roma.
>
>[translated: ok, back to the story. copy, paste, copy paste...]
>
>> Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 1999 *****
>
>one wonders why they even bother.
>
>cheers,
>t
What does t's 'irony' produce as its rhetorical effect? The idea that "near daily attacks on and murders of Serbs and Roma" are not to be taken seriously, at least not as seriously as the Guardian reporter's words which amuse him to no end. Perhaps the reason why t cut out the rest of the story is that even he was a bit embarrassed about telling a joke at the expense of the Albanians who are threatened by the KLA, for they can't be as safely disregarded as the Serbs and Roma can be in the present ideological climate.
Yoshie