So, 'twould seem that the wonderful people at www.codoh.com want to place this ad in the college paper. (I've swiped a copy of the thing from their website, to avoid having them trace their way back here, which is also why the main site isn't a hyperlink. I'll probably change this after we go to press.) Said ad is rather ingeniously written, so that it's primarily devoted to attacking the Jewish Defense League (who, frankly, deserve it), and the Anti-Defamation League, but along the way brings up a heaping handful of Holocaust denial.

The paper has made its own decision on what to do, which I'm going to leave out of this journal until they go to press. Suffice it to say that, as usual, I disagree with them, although I can't say they don't have a case.

The most obvious options are to run the thing and leave it at that; to run the thing with commentary on the side; to run the commentary while rejecting the ad, but printing it as an illustration for the commentary; or not to run it at all. Or something in between. All I'll say here right now is that they didn't choose the first of those.

For my part, I'm planning on doing a column of my own, explaining why I think we should have run the thing without any commentary at all. I'm also thinking of doing another piece, analyzing the rather clever -- and very misleading -- way the ad is written, but I think that would be outside the scope of what I want to cover there. If I write it, I'll probably set up another web page to handle that, which I'll mention in the column that does go in.

I understand a policy of not printing anything that is patently defamatory toward a group of people. An ad saying "all kikes must die" would pretty clearly be out, f'rinstance. But that's not the case here. So, um, what's our problem? Why is this any worse than printing an ad from people who believe that the Earth is flat, and this whole "globe" business is just a government conspiracy? Sure, they're kooks... so why feel threatened?

Because people just might take it seriously, I suppose.

Well. Why might they take it seriously?

Because they don't trust anybody anymore.

I see. And the way to fix this is to censor viewpoints that happen to be utterly ridiculous? Oh, yeah, that'll really instill trust in people, and empower them to make reasonable decisions.

I don't think this sort of nonsense should be allowed to set the paper's agenda, or dignified with a response. Provide a link to the Nizkor project, if you want, for those who do want to research this further, but that's really all that's neccessary, or warranted. Otherwise, you make it seem as if the Holocaust is more debatable than, say, the existence of WWII itself. Or the fact that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

It's one thing to have the facts available in a reference book or site; it's another thing to make it seem as if they're newsworthy.