Good Luck to...

NY's 14th Congressional District.  How proud you must be of the brilliant and erudite representative you elected.

Brackets, Cowbells, and Echos

I learn something new every day. I've been seeing brackets ((( ))) in several comments on various sites lately, and I've wondered what they mean. To me, they connote hugs, but judging from the context of these posts, I knew that there really had to be another explanation. According to a Slate writer (yeah, I know) they signify Jewishness. And not in a good way.

Mic has a good exposé on the origins of the cowbell: Known to alt-right activists as an “echo,” the symbol sprang from a hardcore conservative podcast named the Daily Shoah. The Shoah “featured a segment called ‘Merchant Minute’ that gave Jewish names a cartoonish ‘echo’ sound effect when uttered,” Cooper Fleishman and Anthony Smith explain. When they reached out to the podcast editors for more information, they were told that the meme also functioned as a critique of “Jewish power”:

"The inner parenthesis represent the Jews' subversion of the home [and] destruction of the family through mass-media degeneracy. The next [parenthesis] represents the destruction of the nation through mass immigration, and the outer [parenthesis] represents international Jewry and world Zionism."

Don't bother  reading the article unless you're into "Freudian effluvium that pours out of Trump-adjacent spigots of the Internet." Yep, he really said that. Or she did. Or zhe did. Whatevah. 

Strange times we live in. Very strange indeed.  Frankly, I could care less. Sticks and stones, and all that. Free speech is free speech. We wouldn't need laws (and a Constitutional amendment) to protect it if it was always rainbows and unicorn farts.

When you see me using brackets, rest assured that I'm hugging you and not labeling you a subversive, immigration-loving, world-conquering zionist. 

Shoah

For the past week I have been watching Claude Lanzmann's 1985 documentary Shoah. I've had to view it a little at a time; it's too overwhelming to do anything else. I'm on part 3 of 4, and feel emotionally raw. In 2010, Roger Ebert said:

"For more than nine hours I sat and watched a film named "Shoah," and when it was over, I sat for a while longer and simply stared into space, trying to understand my emotions. I had seen a memory of the most debased chapter in human history. But I had also seen a film that affirmed life so passionately that I did not know where to turn with my confused feelings. There is no proper response to this film. It is an enormous fact, a 550-minute howl of pain and anger in the face of genocide. It is one of the noblest films ever made."

Don't bother making popcorn for this movie. You won't eat it.  God help us all.

A Somber Film

The ruins of Berlin in '45.



H/T: IOTW

Classless or Clueless?

Auschwitz missed.

Not my President, not my country.  But I'm still disgusted that the supposed leader of the "free" world behaves in such a callous manner.

How, in all the history of the last 100 years, can he NOT BE THERE?

I am truly sad.  Sad that a modern President raised in the USA has no knowledge of the evil that men do. 

Ben Shapiro "I have never been more ashamed to be an alumnus of this university"

"Ben Shapiro, reporter and talk show host, makes the trip to his Alma Mater, UCLA, to make a statement against the BDS, a pro-Palestinian movement who supports boycotting Israeli products made in Judea and Samaria. “I have never been more ashamed to be an alumnus of this university,” Shapiro tells the audience. Shapiro’s audacity and courage made it possible for more Israel supporters to speak up at the BDS hearing, and, ultimately, the proposal was voted down. Thank goodness for Ben Shapiro and some healthy Jewish chutzpa!"

via Israel Video Network



Hat Tip:  Devon aka RWC from many moons ago in a strange green universe....

Turns out this is an old video but the truth is still the truth.

Yom Hashoah 2013 - Israel's Holocaust Memorial Day

Yom Hashoah 5773 - 2013

Yom Hashoah, Israel's Holocaust Memorial Day, began this evening with the annual ceremony at Yad Vashem. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke of Israel's need not forfeit its security to other nations:

Netanyahu stated that anti-Semitic hatred "has not disappeared, it has been switched with murderous hatred against the state of the Jews. What has changed is our ability to defend ourselves."

The prime minister stated that while Israel appreciated the efforts of the world to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions, Israel "cannot forfeit our security to other nations...not even to our closest allies."

PM Binyamin Netanyahu speaks at the Yom Hashoah ceremony at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem

President Shimon Peres reminded us and the world that anti-Semitism still exists and is still a threat to the Jewish people and all humanity:

The map of Europe still contains local stains of anti-Semitism. Racism erupted on that land in the last century and dragged it down to its lowest point. Ultimately the murder which came from her, damaged her.

To our shame, there remain some who learned nothing. Young skinheads. False scientists dressed in false suits. Yes! There remain those who forget the Holocaust, those who deny it.

Not all the flames have been extinguished. Crises are once again exploited to form Nazi parties, ridiculous but dangerous. Sickening anti-Semitic cartoons are published allegedly in the name of press freedom.

[...]

The civilized world must ask itself how in such a short space of time after the crematoria were extinguished, after the terrible death toll that the allied powers endured to put an end to the Nazi devil, it is still possible for the leadership, like that of Iran, to openly deny the Holocaust and threaten another Holocaust.

Peres' words are reinforced by the news that there has been a 30% increase in anti-Semitic incidents worldwide in 2012. Most shockingly, and counter-intuitively, anti-Semitic incidents lead to more anti-Semitism, not less: