Year: 2023

The Testimony of Elie Wiesel

The award-winning author of NIGHT admits to telling stories about things that could have happened, but never did.

“‘What are you writing?’ the Rebbe asked. ‘ – Stories,’ I said. He wanted to know what kind of stories: true stories. ‘About people you have knew?’ Yes, about people I might have known. ‘About things that happened?’ Yes, about things that happened or could have happened. ‘But they did not?’ No, not all of them did. In fact, some some were invented from almost the beginning to almost the end. The Rebbe leaned forward as if to measure me up and said with more sorrow than anger: ‘That means that you are writing lies!’ I did not answer immediately. The scolded child within me had nothing to say in his defense. Yet, I had to justify myself. ‘Things are not that simple, Rebbe. Some events do take place but are not true; other are – although they never occurred.'”

Elie Wiesel, LEGENDS OF OUR TIME, Schocken Books, New York, 1982, p. viii

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Officially Outdated

If you’re still not sure it’s worthwhile to subscribe to Castalia Library and/or History, or if you’re still not convinced that the literature you treasure is actually being targeted for eradication by the Zero History crowd, consider the way in which the funniest writer in the English language, PG Woodhouse, is already being bowlderized:

Publishers have issued the works of PG Wodehouse with a blanket trigger warning over concerns that it contains ‘outdated’ social attitudes.

Novels including Leave it to PSmith and Something Fresh have both been reissued by their publisher, Penguin, with a caution, despite the fact that neither have been flagged for potentially offensive or contain racist terminonlogy.

All news editions of Wodehouse’s work will come with warnings saying that his novels depict obsolete attitudes, the Telegraph reported.

The trigger warning issued by Penguin read: ‘Please be aware that this book was published in the 1920s and may contain language, themes, or characterisations which you may find outdated.’

The move comes after publishers rewrote Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster books to remove ‘unacceptable’ prose, in April.

This is why we are actively looking into a variety of ways to preserve the Western literary canon, both physically and digitally.

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Regression to the Historical Mean

Harold Robinson takes the time to explain the obvious and inevitable, namely, the inability of complex systems to survive the incompetent:

America must be understood as a system of interwoven systems; the healthcare system sends a bill to a patient using the postal system, and that patient uses the mobile phone system to pay the bill with a credit card issued by the banking system. All these systems must be assumed to work for anyone to make even simple decisions. But the failure of one system has cascading consequences for all of the adjacent systems. As a consequence of escalating rates of failure, America’s complex systems are slowly collapsing.

The core issue is that changing political mores have established the systematic promotion of the unqualified and sidelining of the competent. This has continually weakened our society’s ability to manage modern systems. At its inception, it represented a break from the trend of the 1920s to the 1960s, when the direct meritocratic evaluation of competence became the norm across vast swaths of American society.

In the first decades of the twentieth century, the idea that individuals should be systematically evaluated and selected based on their ability rather than wealth, class, or political connections, led to significant changes in selection techniques at all levels of American society. The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) revolutionized college admissions by allowing elite universities to find and recruit talented students from beyond the boarding schools of New England. Following the adoption of the SAT, aptitude tests such as Wonderlic (1936), Graduate Record Examination (1936), Army General Classification Test (1941), and Law School Admission Test (1948) swept the United States. Spurred on by the demands of two world wars, this system of institutional management electrified the Tennessee Valley, created the first atom bomb, invented the transistor, and put a man on the moon.

By the 1960s, the systematic selection for competence came into direct conflict with the political imperatives of the civil rights movement. During the period from 1961 to 1972, a series of Supreme Court rulings, executive orders, and laws—most critically, the Civil Rights Act of 1964—put meritocracy and the new political imperative of protected-group diversity on a collision course. Administrative law judges have accepted statistically observable disparities in outcomes between groups as prima facie evidence of illegal discrimination. The result has been clear: any time meritocracy and diversity come into direct conflict, diversity must take priority.

The resulting norms have steadily eroded institutional competency, causing America’s complex systems to fail with increasing regularity. In the language of a systems theorist, by decreasing the competency of the actors within the system, formerly stable systems have begun to experience normal accidents at a rate that is faster than the system can adapt. The prognosis is harsh but clear: either selection for competence will return or America will experience devolution to more primitive forms of civilization and loss of geopolitical power.

Unfortunately, it’s not possible for selection for competence to return, because the demographic changes to the US population means that politics are no longer ideology-based, but identity-based, and people from cultures that have never valued individual merit in any way are not going to start doing so in a post-meritocratic United States.

Furthermore, the average level of intelligence, and therefore, the average level of competence, has declined with the mass infusion of inferior genetics, to such an extent that the average IQ is probably 10 points lower than it was before 1965, when the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 was superseded by the Immigration and Nationality Act.

One doesn’t need to be a eugenicist to understand the societal consequences of long-term dysgenics. Think of it as large-scale regression to the historical mean, or, if you’re not an abstract thinker, why the USA is going to lose its ability to provide widespread indoor plumbing to its inhabitants.

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Banking in Yuan

Russian banks are openly discussing settlements in the Chinese currency:

The hegemony of the US dollar is seriously challenged by the rise of the Chinese yuan and by Washington’s failed attempt to wreck the Russian economy by weaponizing the greenback, Andrey Kostin, head of Russia’s banking major VTB, told Reuters on Friday.

The major banking figure said that under the current geopolitical circumstances more and more nations are shifting away from trade settlements in dollar and euro, while China is moving towards removal of strict currency policies.

“The long historical era of the dominance of the American dollar is coming to an end,” Kostin said, in an interview with the news agency. “I think that the time has come when China will gradually remove currency restrictions.”

According to Kostin, VTB has been discussing using the Chinese national currency in settlements with third countries.

US Dollar hegemony was always based on US military supremacy which began with the security of the US industrial homeland and was secured by the physical destruction of all of its potential economic rivals from 1939-1941. But now that Clown World is collapsing under the weight of its incoherencies, that global military supremacy has devolved to the mere regional superiority of a traditional Great Power, as evidenced by the recent failures of its proxies in Syria, Afghanistan, and Ukraine.

And that is a very, very different game than global monopower.

My expectation is that the political structure of the USA will fail before most Americans recognize the extent to which the global balance of power has changed.

UPDATE: The Chinese are directly targeting the US film industry as well.

China Film Association released professional ethics convention for film practitioners, vowing firm opposition to tax evasion, pornography, gambling and drugs.

The association published the convention on its WeChat account on Thursday, saying that the move is aimed to further strengthen the construction of professional ethics of film workers and the construction of film industry style in order to create a clean environment for the Chinese film industry and contribute to building China into a country with a strong socialist culture.

The convention called on Chinese film practitioners to stick to loving the country and the people and to firmly oppose any remark or behavior attempting to split the country, destroy national unity, damage social harmony and stability or infringe people’s interests.

It requires film practitioners to comply with the laws and regulations on environmental protection, cultural relics protection and production safety at filming sites; resolutely resist tax evasion, pornography, gambling and drugs.

It also expresses opposition against violating behaviors like exorbitant pay, ghostwriting by gunmen, malicious hype, fake box office and illegal reprinting, and calls on the industry to abandon abnormal aesthetics.

Translation from the original Mandarin: No more Disney films in China.

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Saturday Arktoons

HYPERGAMOUSE Episode 99: New Guy at the Office

FLIP CITY CIRCUS Episode 7: The Woking Dead

CHATEAU GRIEF Episode 252: Bald as Brass

TATTERS Episode 1: The beginning

THE RED TATTOO Episode 40: Obey Me

THE WISE OF HEART Episode 26: Harry Shelton Testifies

THE CHRONICLES OF THE ADVENTURE, HUNTING, AND LIQUIDATION COMMITTEE Episode 1: Prologue: A Very Poltergeist Happening

FLYING SPARKS Episode 75: Our Own Thing

NEURAL NETWORK NOVELLAS Episode 15: Wanted – Dead Man

FULLSTRIKE! Episode 9: Shock and Aweshucks

Turning the Tide!

The long-awaited Ukrainian offensive has been launched and it is succeeding on every front, if the British media is to be believed.

The battle the world has been waiting for: As Ukraine’s counter-offensive gets underway, a breakdown of what has been achieved so far, with Russia on the backfoot and Western weapons turning the tide.

The long-awaited moment has arrived: Ukraine’s counter-attack, for which the country has been preparing since late last year, is now underway. Kyiv is saying nothing, but Ukrainian officials, Western analysts and Russian military bloggers all agree the attack began early this week with fighting ramping up across the frontline since then.

Ukrainian officials say there will be no single thrust and the offensive is designed as a series of operations that will take months to play out. What we have seen over the last week is merely the opening gambit. But things are already starting to take shape.

Ukraine is attacking on three fronts in the east, south-east, and south of the country: Bakhmut, which was captured by Russia last month; Velyka Novosilka & Novodonetsk, in Donetsk oblast; and Orikhiv, in neighbouring Zaporizhzhia.

I just like to post these things for the record, so they aren’t buried in a few weeks if events don’t proceed in the way the media was first reporting them. I particularly enjoyed the self-congratulatory “Western weapons turning the tide”.

I wonder how long it will be before the British media is desperately denying that any weapons or personnel were supplied to the Ukrainian forces or involved in the offensive?

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Marvel Kills The Punisher

The Punisher has been cancelled and killed by Marvel Comics. But fear not. Because Arkhaven is inevitable and The Legend is inexhaustible.

The Punisher character (Frank Castle), originally created by writer Gerry Conway in 1974 with artists Ross Andru and John Romita, was a product of a chaotic era; a reaction to the rise of war, stagflation, instability and exploding crime rates in the US. The Punisher’s story is a tragedy of a returning military veteran whose family is killed during what seems to be a gangland hit. With federal agencies doing little to arrest the perpetrators, Castle takes matters into his own hands and begins systematically assassinating the criminals.

The concept of citizen crime stopping and vigilantism was becoming popular in the cultural zeitgeist in the 70s, with many people living in metropolitan areas dealing with increasing criminal violence and unreliable government protection. City governments in places like New York were actively restricting gun rights for law abiding people, which only made things easier for criminals.

The same exact conditions are returning to the US today, and debate is boiling once again on vigilantes (just look at the media fury over Kyle Rittenhouse or Daniel Penny). The mainstream left is adamantly opposed to any form of civilian intervention (unless it’s Antifa or BLM), while also being adamantly opposed to any intervention by police. In other words, they want to let criminals run wild and then threaten to prosecute anyone who dares to do anything about it.

The Punisher as an icon has been highly popular among conservatives, military veterans and law enforcement officers in recent years. The trademark skull symbol can be found everywhere, with patches, gear and flags sporting the image, often as a representation of citizens taking matters into their own hands. The symbol was also seen at the January 6th protests.

This has made leftists at Marvel Comics livid. They first attempted to make fundamental changes to the character, including a redesign of his popular skull symbol, as well as taking away his guns and giving him swords in 2021. Instead of fighting against criminal organizations, Frank Castle joins with one, violating his fundamental code of ethics.

This month, though, Marvel officially declared the Punisher persona non grata, eliminating the character as readers know him. Did he go out in a blaze of glory? No, in typical woke fashion Frank Castle is captured by progressive heroes, chained up and forced to go through a struggle session in which he is admonished as a murderer and a terrorist. Marvel even brings the Punisher’s wife back from the dead, only so that she can divorce him and take his money and property, and then inform him that his lifelong crusade against the criminal underworld was all for nothing.

The character then “dies” from apparent suicide but the story is left open to his return, just not as the gun-toting hero people know and love.

Woke Marvel Eliminates The Punisher Due To “Problematic” Conservative Fan Base, Zerohedge, 9 June 2023

It’s a timely article. One commenter at Zerohedge was perspicacious indeed.

This will end up being an opportunity for Arkhaven Comics. They have been capitalizing on Marvel’s and DC’s wokeness for a few years now.

And now, a word from the Legend.

“It’s not exactly a secret that the Punisher is my favorite character to write. For whatever reason I have an affinity for the guy and the stories came easily. But, if we’re being honest, Frank Castle was never a good fit at Marvel Comics. There were always restrictions when writing about him. Editors waved me off for “going too far.” Now I’m working on Black Warrant which is in the same vigilante justice genre except the guardrails, training wheels and safety bumpers have been taken off. I’m allowed to take this genre in places it’s never been taken and having a blast doing it.”

He’s not kidding. I’ve read the first issue and it would not be an exaggeration to describe it as “hard-hitting”. Black Warrant will be the first superhero in a brand new superhero universe from Arkhaven Comics. The first script by the Legend is complete and the illustrating process is already underway. Helix Haze, the excellent illustrator of Alt★Hero: Q, is the illustrator.

Black Warrant will be joined by Red Hornet, created by Vox Day, and another superhero who has been created by a third creator whose name will be very familiar to everyone here. The shared universe will not be part of the Alt★Hero universe, but will harken back to the Silver Age superheroes and will extend in time over a century from the dawn of the 20th Century to today.

While Arkhaven is 100 percent committed to its flagship comics and the Alt★Hero universe, as well as Midnight’s War and Hypergamouse, the fact that the wheels have completely come off the Big Two and their impending mutual collapse means that the opportunity to provide a more traditional superhero universe was simply too good to pass up. There are also some new developments on the production front which mean that over the course of the next year, we need more content in order to utilize our expanded production capacities, both for Castalia and Arkhaven as well as various independent publishers.

UPDATE: Bounding Into Comics covers the announcement of BLACK WARRANT, complete with images from the issue cited. To be honest, it’s already clear that our artwork will be better too.

As Marvel Kills The Punisher, Longtime ‘Punisher’ Creator Chuck Dixon Announces ‘Black Warrant’ Series

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An Amusing Exchange

A commenter attempted to introduce a noted theologian to Nick Krauser. It did not go well.

bowler hat
might wanna watch jordan peterson’s lectures on the bible, nick 😉

Krauser
He hasn’t even read the Bible.

bowler hat
that’s an ignorant comment, nick. misguided at best

Krauser
No. You’re on JBP’s nuts. He treats the Bible like its just archtype stories and is theologically ignorant. He’s a fake and you’ve been had.

bowler hat
sigh. you’re such a voxday fanboy, nick. he’s your guru

Krauser
You’re posturing. Latest is that JBP just got exposed for lying about his IQ.

There are few things sadder than anyone who is dumb enough to still believe that Jordan Peterson is a serious public intellectual.

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Thursday Arktoons

ALT★HERO Episode 75: The Madame

FAIRY DOOR Episode 24: Up the Bell Tower

CHATEAU GRIEF Episode 251: Pressure Luck

FLIP CITY CIRCUS Episode 5: The Woking Dead

CHUCK DIXON PRESENTS: ADVENTURE Episode 79: The Brigand

STONETOSS Episode 196: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Hearse

BEN GARRISON Episode 108: Elon Musk Bans Grrrgraphics

Stonetoss brings the heat, Dynamique is doing Dynamique things, and then there’s this from Twitter:

@GrrrGraphics
Account suspended
Twitter suspends accounts that violate the Twitter Rules.

It’s more than a bit ironic that Arktoons, which is absolutely not a free speech platform, nevertheless permits more of it than a platform which falsely proclaims itself to be one.

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