July 2, 2009 Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The hallmark of a person Abe Novick: Up, up, and aliya July 1, 2009 Rabbi Avi Shafran: The Road Taken The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta: Get into the holiday spirit with these Star-Spangled desserts June 30, 2009 Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg: What makes a great parent? Caroline B. Glick: Ideologue-in-Chief June 29, 2009 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Beware of 'Caveat Emptor' Steven Emerson: ACLU pushing for more money for Hamas June 26, 2009 Rabbi Yoni Posnick: Learn the secret to a healthy marriage from a scriptural villain Caroline B. Glick: Barack Obama vs. International Law June 25, 2009 Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf: The Absurd Power of Truth Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative June 24, 2009 Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Advancement of technology is a wake-up call for humanity The Kosher Gourmet by Andrea Weigl: Summer on a stick: Making frozen treats can be easy, creative and fun June 23, 2009 Martin M. Bodek: 'On Surnames': And so, We Begin Caroline B. Glick: The Obama Effect June 22, 2009 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Working for a corrupt firm N. Richard Greenfield : Where are American Jews? June 19, 2009 Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Emotion v. intellect Caroline B. Glick: Israel's rare opportunity June 18, 2009 Jonathan Rosenblum: Sometimes it is more essential to define the nature of evil than good Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative June 17, 2009 Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Language of Confusion The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Nothing pleases Dad more than a thick, juicy onion-smothered steak. Add home-Baked Potato Chips and … June 16, 2009 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Career v. Careersism Caroline B. Glick: Obama's losing streak and Israel Richard Z. Chesnoff: ‘Palestinians’: Never Missing an Opportunity … June 15, 2009 Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: How Judea and Samaria can become 'Palestine' Daniel Pipes: Where Netanyahu's speech failed June 12, 2009 Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Some big thoughts about not acting so big Caroline B. Glick: Obama's High Commissioner June 11, 2009 Victor Davis Hanson: Our historically challenged President Mitch Albom: Beware the True Believers Lewis Grossberger: What we learn from the new Hitler photos June 10, 2009 Mort Zuckerman: What Obama and his advisors won't -- or refuse to -- grasp about Israel and the Muslim world The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky Lotsa pasta: Tips, techniques and (amazing) taste June 9, 2009 Anne Bayefsky: Obama's stunning offense to Israel and the Jewish people Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: America's first Muslim president? June 8, 2009 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Merchant must take responsibility for careless shopper? Mark Steyn: A superpower that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on leftovers from the past Richard Z. Chesnoff: How do you say 'kumbaya' in Arabic? June 5, 2009 Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: In quest of spirituality Caroline B. Glick: Obama's Arabian dreams Charles Krauthammer: The Settlements Myth June 4, 2009 Paul Greenberg: The War Comes to Little Rock The Kosher Gourmet by Judy Hevrdejs: Splash it on! Tap your inner jazz musician and improvise when stirring up a vinaigrette June 3, 2009 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Should terrible teacher be exposed? Jonathan Rosenblum: The Israel Lobby: Missing in Action June 2, 2009 Dennis Prager: The Speech President Obama Won't Dare Give in Egypt Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Pressure on Israel raises war risk Oct. 29, 2003 Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Feb. 12, 2007 / 24 Shevat, 5767 I'm in denial, you're in denial By Suzanne Fields http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Nothing corrupts intellectual power like the abuse of the language. Free speech becomes an endangered species when powerful words, misused, become shortcuts for specious argument and repetitious cliches trivialize noble ideas. Nothing stops someone in a foot-in-the-mouth defense of himself like being told "you're in denial," meaning that he's avoiding the truth of experience. If you don't acknowledge an accurate diagnosis of a terminal disease, recognize the philandering of a mate or see the approaching death that awaits us all, "you're in denial." The truth-seeker in wolf's clothing demands that everyone look at the world through his lens, as though through a glass, lightly. Denial is based not on facts, but emotion. All deniers aren't equal opportunity deniers, and an all-purpose stigma inhibits rational argument. We see this illustrated on Page One every morning. Skeptics of global warming are compared to Holocaust deniers. The ecologically correct become eco-heresy hunters determined to silence anyone who questions their evidence, flimsy and questionable or not. Any human destruction of nature is described as "ecocide" (like genocide.) When David Irving was sentenced to prison in Austria as a "Holocaust denier," an Australian journalist suggested making climate-change denial a similar offense. An Internet commentator wants global-warming deniers to be tried like Nazi war criminals. "Denial" came out of the therapyspeak prevalent in the middle of the 20th century, especially as it was applied to confronting the reality of mortality. It was popularized as the first stage of grief, but was quickly expanded to include refusal to confront any bad news or disturbing ideas. Like the broken clock that's correct twice a day, denial is sometimes an accurate label for certain behavior, but as a consuming mythology in our culture it becomes the all-purpose description to deny independent thinking. On a personal level it's used to accuse others of cowardice in refusing to face up to what is regarded as in their own best interest. It elevates a kind of psychological groupthink over independent interpretations and casts a critical eye at those who face their problems in their own way. This attitude wreaks enormous havoc when it is applied to public issues. When denial is used against those who question the evidence of conventional wisdom it acts as a secular Inquisition creating a free-floating metaphor for post-modern blasphemy. "This targeting of denial has little to do with the specifics of the highly charged emotional issues involved in discussions of the Holocaust or AIDS or pollution," writes sociologist Frank Furedi in Spiked Online. "Rather it is driven by a wider mood of intolerance towards free thinking." It becomes an informal but dangerous form of collective censorship, limiting free speech and demanding social or civil punishment, or both. (Free speech defenders have no problem defending their own dearly held beliefs, but often when called on to defend something they consider dangerous find all manner of exceptions.) For all of the creepiness of "Holocaust denial," making it against the law not only restricts free speech, perniciously wrong-headed as that is, but forces those who perpetuate it to go underground. When President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran held his Holocaust denial conference in Tehran, he exposed his irrational hatred to the rest of the world, making his threat to "wipe Israel off the map" and his determination to develop nuclear weapons suddenly visible as a genuine threat to everyone. His hyperventilated rhetoric, as outrageous as it is, requires counter arguments of reason and cannot be dismissed as the ravings of a madman, a mistake many critics of Hitler made. The Tehran conference drew wide rebuke, inspiring hundreds of articles refuting speaker after speaker. Such refutations won't dissuade the anti-Semites who ply their trade in the Middle East, but will establish a contemporary historical record and heighten the alert for those in the Western democracies who understand that words can be deadly weapons of mass destruction. No word has been so trivialized as "Holocaust." It's attached to issues that bear no relation to the crimes of the Nazis of the Third Reich. The triumph of bad taste and perversion of moral meaning is exhibited by animal rights protesters who compare the slaughter of animals to the slaughter of Jews. In one of their campaigns, called "Holocaust on Your Plate," images of animals locked in pens are superimposed on photographs of emaciated prisoners behind the barbed wire of a concentration camp. The human talent for devising destruction is boundless, and humans of goodwill must demand the careful use of words to make reasonable distinctions. If we don't, we are truly in denial. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. Comment on JWR contributor Suzanne Fields' column by clicking here. Suzanne Fields Archives © 2006, Creators Syndicate, Suzanne Fields

Mitch Albom  Michael Barone   Dave Barry  Tony Blankley  Andy Borowitz  David Broder  Stratfor Briefing  Mona Charen  Linda Chavez  Ann Coulter  Greg Crosby  Rod Dreher  Larry Elder  Suzanne Fields  John Fund  Frank J. Gaffney  Lloyd Garver  Jonah Goldberg  Julia Gorin  Jonathan Gurwitz  Paul Greenberg  Lewis Grossberger  Victor Davis Hanson  Betsy Hart  Nat Hentoff  David Horowitz  Laura Ingraham  Paul Johnson  Jack Kelly  Ed Koch  Ch. Krauthammer  Jonathan Last  Michael Ledeen  John Leo  David Limbaugh  Kathryn Lopez  Rich Lowry  Michelle Malkin  Jackie Mason  Dick Morris  Bill O'Reilly  Jim Mullen  Clarence Page  Kathleen Parker  Dennis Prager  Wesley Pruden  Tom Purcell  Jonathan Rauch  Celia Rivenbark  Robert Robb  Cokie & Steve Roberts  Pat Sajak  Debra J. Saunders  Culture Shlock  Roger Simon  Michael Smerconish  Thomas Sowell  Mark Steyn  John Stossel  Cal Thomas  Bob Tyrrell  Diana West  Dave Weinbaum  George Will  Walter Williams  Byron York  Mort Zuckerman  Robert Arial  Chuck Asay  Baloo  Chip Bok  Dry Bones   Lisa Benson  John Branch  Gary Brookins  John Cole  J. D. Crowe  John Deering  Brian Duffy  Everything's Relative  Mallard Fillmore  Jake Fuller  Bob Gorrel  Joe Heller  David Hitch  Jerry Holber  Steve Kelley  Jeff Koterba  Dick Locher  Chan Lowe  Ranan R. Lurie  Jimmy Margulies  Rick McKee  Michael Ramirez  Kevin Siers  Jeff Stahler  Ed Stein  Danna Summers  John Trever  Gary Varvel  Kirk Walters  How 2  Lori Borgman  The Savvy Consumer  Elder matters  Fixit  Dr. Peter Gott  Marybeth Hicks  GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko  Richard Lederer  Tech Maven  Every Monday Matters  Nutrition Myths  Bookmark These  Bruce Williams  How Stuff Works