Althouse

From "A new novel tells the story of Nazi birthing farms" by Kathleen Parker (WaP).

The new novel is "Cradles of the Reich" by Jennifer Coburn.

Here's the article in the Holocaust Encyclopedia about the Lebensborn program.

I found that as I was looking for photographs showing how a place "decorated by Himmler" would look. Here's a propaganda photograph with a caption that translated into "Everything for the healthy child":

 

Himmler had hoped that the program would become the wellspring of future generations of Nazi Germany’s racial elite. However, Lebensborn disappointed these expectations. Although the program’s homes claimed to uphold the highest standards of modern medicine, serious complaints about the quality of medical care emerged....

Himmler had estimated that 100,000 “biologically valuable” German women obtained abortions illegally each year, despite increased penalties. However, only around 7,000 children were born into the Lebensborn homes during the program’s nine-year-long existence. 

Lebensborn ultimately fostered many more kidnapped foreign children, although the precise numbers are difficult to establish. The legacy of the Lebensborn program includes broken homes and devastated parents. It also left a generation of children forced to contend with identity crises as well as the social disapproval that often accompanied their association with a Nazi eugenics program.

I'm not going to read the new novel. I'd rather read nonfiction on this topic, but I would like to read a novel set in the near future that envisions a similar program in America, addressing the problem of declining birth and acknowledging that outlawing abortion won't work.

Of course, the racial aspect of the story would need to be changed, but how much? We'd have some sort of ideology of "diversity" or racial balancing, and it would be interesting to depict various American leaders attempting to work that out and needing to worry that what they are doing is like Lebensborn. Like Lebensborn. 

It would also be interesting to show American leaders attempting to draw in young American women through architecture and interior decoration... displayed on TikTok and Facebook. The novel could be very funny if you got just the right sort of obtuseness as the old try to imagine what these young women today want.

Offers of great food and a wonderful health care system would be part of the draw. More things to go wrong in this novel's twists and turns.

I could write this novel, but it will remain forever on my shelf labeled "Unwritten Books."

1. Réttir — sorting out the sheep in Iceland.

2. The woonerf — a type of street.

3. The Finnish way to live through winter — on Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

4. If Arabic were English.

5. Choosing the boring life.

6. Overnight evolution.

8. Talking to the salad.

9. Hello, darkness, my old friend....

She is quoted in "Sundance Liked Her Documentary on Terrorism, Until Muslim Critics Didn’t/The film festival gave Meg Smaker’s 'Jihad Rehab' a coveted spot in its 2022 lineup, but apologized after an outcry over her race and her approach" (NYT).

Advised by a PR firm to apologize, the director Meg Smaker said "What was I apologizing for? For trusting my audience to make up their own mind?"

Smaker spent 16 months inside a Saudi rehabilitation facility interviewing former Guantánamo detainees.

The attacks came from what  the NYT characterizes as "the left":

Arab and Muslim filmmakers and their white supporters accused Ms. Smaker of Islamophobia and American propaganda. Some suggested her race was disqualifying, a white woman who presumed to tell the story of Arab men.

The filmmaker Assia Boundaoui, said: "To see my language and the homelands of folks in my community used as backdrops for white savior tendencies is nauseating. The talk is all empathy, but the energy is Indiana Jones."

1. A series of drawings with an invitation to visualize the artist.

2. Something called "manner leg" in Korea.

3. Living the barefoot life for 25 years.

4. When it's a woman's video at first, but then the edit switches to a man.

5. When white people speak to black people, they only seem to notice that you're black.

6. When you visit your parents, and it's 6 a.m.

7. When he called the little old lady "lovely." 

8. Queen Elizabeth and David Attenborough discuss a sundial.

9. What do you do with a big old baldface hornet's nest?

10. The old bun-in-the-oven metaphor.

The Duke player’s father, Marvin Richardson, told The New York Times after the game that a slur was repeatedly yelled from the stands as his daughter, Rachel Richardson, was serving and that she feared the “raucous” crowd. He did not immediately respond to requests for comment on B.Y.U.’s findings on Friday. 

That link goes to the NYT story from August 27th, which begins:

A Duke University women’s volleyball player who is Black was called a racial slur during a game Friday night in Utah....

Boldface mine. The Times stated it as a fact. Now, the NYT is very precise and says "no evidence to confirm," but when the allegation was made, it wasn't equivalently precise. Was it careless of precision, or did it consciously choose to leave out the "allegedly" before "called"? Why stir up discord, when so often these allegations turn out to be false?

I see the name "Jussie Smollett" is trending on Twitter. It's the easiest snark in response to the BYU story.

Why hasn't the NYT learned — at the very least — to leave itself an out? Is it carelessness? Is it blinded by the perverse hope that racism — which must be simmering everywhere — will burst forth in a vivid incident? Boosting these stories so eagerly, the media is cultivating doubt.

Stop luring young people into tainting their reputation by concocting another one of these poisonous morsels you're so eager to serve to America!

The incident that started the dispute unfolded in November 2016, when a student tried to buy a bottle of wine with a fake ID while shoplifting two more bottles by hiding them under his coat, according to court papers.

Allyn Gibson, a son and grandson of the owners, who is white, chased the student out onto the street, where two of his friends, also Black students at Oberlin, joined in the scuffle. The students later pleaded guilty to various charges.

After the 2019 jury award against Oberlin, Carmen Twillie Ambar, the college president, said that the case was far from over and that “none of this will sway us from our core values.” The college said then that the bakery’s “archaic chase-and-detain policy regarding suspected shoplifters was the catalyst for the protests.”

Now additional information is released that compounds the mystery. 

1. No one - not any of the BYU players or coaches, Duke coaches (who complained about the lack of action by BYU police, but did not report hearing the slurs), officials, the police officer standing at the Duke bench, or a single fan - has come forward to say they heard the racial slurs. Given the claim the slurs continued throughout the game, this is exceptionally unusual. 

2. To the contrary, the BYU police officer reports that he heard no racial slurs, only players being called out by name. 

3. The specific racial slur was reportedly shouted out every time Richardson served the ball. This type of act, repeated every time a unique part of the match took place (a serve) would be very notable. If Richardson could hear it, it is likely that all of the players, coaches, and officials would also be able to hear it, especially since it was predictably repeated. 

4. Despite Richardson's claim that the racial slur occurred every time she served, ushers and a police officer who were sent into the stands to try and locate the heckler were unable to do so. 

5. The [Utah Valley University] student who approached the Duke player after the game has come forward and admitted he did so, believing it was a friend. He denies making any slurs. 

6. Reviews of video of that same UVU student during the match - who the Duke coaches and players identified as also responsible for the heckling with racial slurs - have not yet been able to confirm he was doing the heckling. To the contrary, the video review shows he was not even present during the second set, and during the later sets show him playing with his phone. 

I have no particular insight into the incident, and I know nothing more than what is being reported. But having interviewed hundreds and hundreds of witnesses over my law enforcement career, and having had the opportunity to observe crowd behavior in venues such as the Salt Palace, Delta Center, and Rice Eccles stadium, there is something here that clearly doesn't add up.