LINDI HOP

unfortunate that the united states has been very successful at controlling narratives around word war 2 and positioning itself as the polar opposite of nazism and the main force fighting fascism when america was complicit in the holocaust. not only did american press report positively about hitler and the nazi party up until the end of the 30′s, some publications cooperated with nazi germany, american companies had investments and connections to nazi germany that they maintained until american involvement in the war, and companies like ibm in particular gave nazis the technology necessary to make the holocaust possible in the first place. some company owners themselves had nazi sympathies like henry ford and others just saw it as a business opportunity. the us denied entry to european jewish refugees and deported jewish refugees back to germany, many senators and other government officials during the 1930s openly supported nazism and worked to prevent the us from taking a side in ww2, and during the 30s large pro nazi rallies were held across the us. american eugenics movement, american race laws and american genocide set the model for the holocaust and there shouldnt be any discussion of nazism and the holocaust without also discussing including the extent of american complicity in it. 

“Tell me your favorite weird fact.”

“Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks called entheos, or the slight buzz of inspiration when reading or writing. The only worthwhile miracle in the New Testament—the transmutation of water into wine during the wedding at Cana—is a tribute to the persistence of Hellenism in an otherwise austere Judaea. The same applies to the Seder at Passover, which is obviously modeled on the Platonic symposium: questions are asked (especially of the young) while wine is circulated. No better form of sodality has ever been devised: at Oxford one was positively expected to take wine during tutorials. The tongue must be untied. It’s not a coincidence that Omar Khayyam, rebuking and ridiculing the stone-faced Iranian mullahs of his time, pointed to the value of the grape as a mockery of their joyless and sterile regime. Visiting today’s Iran, I was delighted to find that citizens made a point of defying the clerical ban on booze, keeping it in their homes for visitors even if they didn’t particularly take to it themselves, and bootlegging it with great brio and ingenuity. These small revolutions affirm the human.”

“Making rules about drinking can be the sign of an alcoholic,” as Martin Amis once teasingly said to me. Of course, watching the clock for the start-time is probably a bad sign, but here are some simple pieces of advice for the young. Don’t drink on an empty stomach: the main point of the refreshment is the enhancement of food. Don’t drink if you have the blues: it’s a junk cure. Drink when you are in a good mood. Cheap booze is a false economy. It’s not true that you shouldn’t drink alone: these can be the happiest glasses you ever drain. Hangovers are another bad sign, and you should not expect to be believed if you take refuge in saying you can’t properly remember last night. (If you really don’t remember, that’s an even worse sign.) Avoid all narcotics: these make you more boring rather than less and are not designed—as are the grape and the grain—to enliven company. Be careful about up-grading too far to single malt Scotch: when you are voyaging in rough countries it won’t be easily available. Never even think about driving a car if you have taken a drop. It’s much worse to see a woman drunk than a man: I don’t know quite why this is true but it just is. Don’t ever be responsible for it.”

“Yet falling in love is not the same as being able to love.”