Story Fabricated to Keep Memories Alive

Joseph Hirt was concerned about ignorance of the truth, so he made up a lie to support the truth.

He wasn't arrested by the Nazis, he didn't escape from Auschwitz under an electric fence, and he didn't meet Jesse Owens, Eleanor Roosevelt, or Dr. Mengele.  He did get a tattoo of Primo Levi's camp number, “in no way an attempt to take on his identity, but in an effort to incorporate his symbol as a way of remembering him”.

As historian Ken Waltzer wrote when Herman Rosenblat was found to have embellished his memoir, "This shows something about the broad unwillingness in our culture to confront the difficult knowledge of the Holocaust."  People's susceptibility to lies about the Holocaust proves the necessity of believing in it, obviously.

Historical investigation of the event remains verboten.

Study Shows Nature Heals Trauma

Man creates War.  War creates Trauma.  Nature offers plants, fungi, forests, and rivers for healing the wounded soul of Man.  Man outlaws Nature.

The Peaceful Donald

With increasing frequency over the last few months some of the most thoughtful left and progressive figures have begun to speak favorably of aspects of Trump’s foreign policy. Let us hear from these heretics.

Lone-Wolf Islamists Relatively Ineffective

Europeans acting alone are more deadly than Islamists without a support network.  The report making this assertion therefore suggests that “right-wing extremists represent a substantial aspect of the lone actor threat and must not be overlooked,” as if these lone actors are the greater threat, and they do not perceive themselves to be responding to an organised incursion by Islamists who do not act alone.

Turks Can't Be Germans Too

Almost half of ethnic Turks living in Germany place the demands of their religion above the laws of the land in which they reside.  A third of those surveyed would rather live in the same society as Mohammed--almost a millennium and a half behind the rest of the world.  Nonetheless, a majority express a readiness to integrate, even while considering it impossible.  Germany will just have to change to make it possible.

Dalai Lama Neuters The West

A giggling old man employed as a humanitarian mascot thinks that universal secular ethics and common sense will inevitably defeat regressive imperialistic theology rooted in violence and oppression--so there's nothing to worry about.  The nice man said so.

Terrorist Was Kind Of A Jerk

Omar Mateen was toxic, unhinged, unstable, racist, homophobic, prone to talking about killing people, and employed, prior to killing or injuring over a hundred people in Orlando.  A former co-worker left his job to get away from Mateen, and isn't at all surprised at what happened.  Their employer tolerated the man's offenses because he was Muslim, but don't you dare suggest he took up arms for the same reason.

Migrants Don't Get Breakfast, Destroy Exhibition Hall

Afghan migrants sided with Iranian security staff against the Arab residents of a Düsseldorf conference center.  As a chapter of an ongoing dispute, the Iranians are accused of deliberately not waking up the Arabs in time for their Ramadan breakfast.  In response, citizens of Morocco, Algeria, Syria and Iraq tried to burn the hall to the ground to get away from the Iranians. 

About 30 migrants have been treated for smoke inhalation, and one of the 70 firefighters called to the arson was hospitalised.  There are reports that as many as 280 migrants were evacuated, although there were only 160 residents officially housed there.

Don't Aggravate the Agitators

San Jose police showed admirable restraint by not intervening when those protesting a Trump rally became violent--throwing punches, eggs, drawing blood by swinging a bag of rocks, and stealing and burning hats.  It was good of them to do nothing, because it could have incited more violence.  It could have, but it didn't, when they eventually started making arrests after ninety minutes of violent protest had tuckered out the terrorists.  Donald Trump must take responsibility for this violence, because law enforcement sure won't!

Dalai Lama Defends The West

Tenzin Gyatso, the present incarnation of Avalokiteśvara, Bodhisattva of Compassion, the 14th Dalai Lama, and one of the most popular personages in the world, thinks there are too many refugees in Germany.  He thinks "Germany is Germany," it "cannot become an Arab country," and the moral thing to do would be to admit refugees temporarily, with the ultimate goal of sending them back to rebuild.  This perspective is not in line with the pronouncements of Western political and religious leaders.

Climate Change Spurred De-Urbanisation

The Indus Valley Civilisation has been pushed back at least 2500 years, with evidence of a pre-Harappan civilisation going back a thousand years more--enough time to develop bustling cities with basic amenities, trade, and a written language, and then lose them.

"9/11 Was An Inside Job!" Say Saudis

Almost fifteen years after the event, the terrorist attack on the WTC in New York is still being used by all parties as a political weapon in a dangerous war of words.

The Canadian Lückenpresse

If you live in the CBC matrix, you are living in a bubble that will soon be pricked by reality. A reality that even the CBC cannot hold at bay. Your trusted information gatekeepers will not be able to stop the truth from busting through and overwhelming you. The shock will render you bewildered and paralytic. You will not be able to make sense of what has befallen you, much in the way that the establishment media pundits are dumbfounded by Trump's success. How could this happen?

Soft and Hard Targets of Scepticism

When people like this get together, they become tribal. They pat each other on the back and tell each other how smart they are compared to those outside the tribe. But belonging to a tribe often makes you dumber.

"All people is going."

Migrants are blocking trucks from leaving Greece for the rest of Europe, because the migrants have been denied that privilege.  Visiting anarchists keep the migrants fed.

Everything's Fine

The chief of the Norwegian Army has said that Europe must be prepared to fight to defend its values. The chief of the Swedish Army has ordered his troops to prepare for war in Europe within a few years.  The chief of the Swiss Army has told citizens to arm themselves.  Now a Swiss member of parliament has compared it to the situation before the Great War.  But it's fine.  Everything's fine.

Problems of Racial Segregation

All peoples tend to prefer to live amongst their own kind, but it's the responsibility of white people to move to diverse neighbourhoods, for the sake of integration, peace, justice, and all that is good.

Poor Turnout For Selfies and Footbaths with Pope Francis

"All of us together, Muslims, Hindus, Catholics, Copts, Evangelical brothers and sisters — children of the same God — we want to live in peace, integrated," said the Pope (emphasis added). "Migrants are our brothers and sisters in search of a better life, far away from poverty, hunger, exploitation and the unjust distribution of the planet’s resources which are meant to be equitably shared by all."

Nixon Disliked Blacks, Hippies

Feminists, liberals, libertarians and more are dreadfully upset and surprised that the war on drugs has never been about drugs.

Clever Science Man Says We're All Doomed

Stephen Hawking has warned a schoolboy that the human race will surely face global disaster, "in the foreseeable future."  Whether by means of genetically-engineered viruses, nuclear war, or global warming, we stand a reasonable chance of being wiped out entirely thanks to our own overreaching hubris.

"Most of the threats we face come from the progress we’ve made... We are not going to stop making progress," opined Hawking.

Stephen Hawking is a professor.