ABSTRACT
Summer in New York can be scorching. On a bad day, the heat coupled with high humidity can make moving around the city intolerable, and me irascible. The summer of 2003 was fairly typical in this regard, and having just relocated to New York from England, I was particularly sensitive to the sweaty conditions in our East Village apartment. So, perhaps, the irritating discussion that I had with my girlfriend might be attributed to that. It started when she pointed out an article that recently appeared in an American magazine, discussing World War II concentration camps in Italy. We did not have concentration camps, I protested. The exchange quickly escalated into an argument, and I was left upset, angry, and ashamed.
