This new Texas university aims to pursue truth, not suppress speech and ideas



Cynthia M. Allen
Fri, November 12, 2021,

When a diverse group of intellectuals this week announced the formation of a new university in Texas — one “committed to open inquiry, freedom of conscience, and civil discourse” — the response from detractors in the media (social and traditional) was predictable.

There was almost an immediate attempt to shut down any discussion over the academic and cultural value of such an institution and disparage all of those involved.

“Will it be a proper institution of higher learning or Troll State?” opined a Washington Post writer.

The question that should have been asked instead is: Why has an institution that identifies the pursuit of truth as its highest priority become a novelty among American universities?

Pano Kanelos, the new president of the nascent University of Austin, didn’t mince words in his explanation.

“Many universities no longer have an incentive to create an environment where intellectual dissent is protected and fashionable opinions are scrutinized,” he wrote in the newsletter of former New York Times columnist and fellow university founder Bari Weiss, announcing the university’s formation.

Consequently, he continued, our “educational system has become illiberal and is producing citizens and leaders who are incapable and unwilling to participate in the core activity of democratic governance.”

He isn’t wrong.

The state of American higher education has been in peril for years.

Universities, once bastions of free and diverse thought, have become places that inhibit intellectual curiosity and exploration to an alarming degree.

Kanelos cites survey data that find high levels of intolerance among university professors for colleagues who have a “wrong opinion” about a controversial subject such as immigration or gender differences. A surprising number of academics report that they have been threatened with disciplinary action for their views.

It’s no surprise that this thinking has been absorbed by university students who overwhelmingly acknowledge that the campus environment stifles them from speaking their minds but also admit that they have no problem reporting professors if the professor says something students find offensive.

There are innumerable campus incidents of the latter, in which students have complained to administration about faculty and in many cases insisted upon groveling public apologies, termination or capitulation to a list of unreasonable demands.

And students are increasingly reporting their peers based on some perceived offense, sometimes threatening the accused’s academic future.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has documented many such incidents through the years.

Some of the Austin university’s founders have endured harassment, vicious attacks and ostracization for holding or even attempting to discuss heterodox views about subjects elite institutions suddenly deem too fraught to study.

But elite academe’s loss is the new institution’s (and its future students’) gain.

Its board of advisers includes Lawrence H. Summers, a former Harvard president and economic adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama; Glenn Loury, an economist at Brown University; and Nadine Strossen, law professor and former president of the American Civil Liberties Union. It’s an embarrassment of riches.

Kalenos said more than 1,000 professors have expressed interest in participating — a clear indication that there is no short supply of academics seeking to extricate themselves from presumably toxic environments.

But founding universities is expensive, especially when they draw the caliber of intellectual power the University of Austin has so far.

If higher education has another seemingly insurmountable problem, it’s cost.

Part of the university’s mission will be to provide a top-notch liberal arts education at a more affordable price ($30,000 or less a year). Kanelos said it will forgo some of the superfluous bells and whistles that contribute minimally to a student’s intellectual experience.

And presumably, the kind of student who is interested in an intellectually focused environment won’t care too much about having a state-of-the-art rec center or fancy food court.

When you’re a truth seeker in an academically free environment, who needs football?

300-Million-Year-Old Fossil of Weird Reptile Found in Utah


Matthew Hart
Fri, November 12, 2021

A team of paleontologists recently excavated something extraordinary in Utah: a 300-million-year-old fossil of some as-yet-unidentified species of reptile. Or amphibian. It’s unclear. Regardless, the paleontologists say the fossil stands as a “once in a lifetime kind of skeleton” that likely represents a new species of slithery creature.

Petrified Forest NP

Smithsonian Magazine reported on the new, ancient fossil from Utah, which likely comes from a novel species of tetrapod. Tetrapods, as their moniker implies, are four-limbed animals. They are often ones from extant, as well as extinct, amphibian and reptile species. (Examples of tetrapods include everything from toads to aquatic snakes.)

Paleontologists from the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona along with researchers from the Natural History Museum of Utah and the University of Southern California, excavated the fossil from a slickrock wash in the Canyonlands National Park. Apparently, the tetrapod’s fossil is quite well intact. With the creature’s rock-mineral skull, backbone, forelimbs, hind limbs, and pelvic girdle all present.

Adam Huttenlocker, a biologist at the University of Southern California shared that “this fossil appears to be an early amniote, which is a land-living vertebrate that lays eggs.” He also went on to say, “Because the fossil is so complete, it will help to shed light on the controversial evolutionary relationships of early amniotes, including reptiles and the extinct ancestors of mammals (synapsids).” The fact this is the first amniote fossil paleontologists have recovered from the area from this time period makes the team confident it’s a new species. Though it is important to note, they are not certain yet if it is.

The paleontologists also still need to narrow down when exactly this creature roamed Earth. Although they already have it pegged at somewhere between 290 and 310 million years ago. The timeframe likely places this tetrapod in the Permian geologic period, which began around 300 million years ago. The Permian spanned up to the Triassic—which led up to the Jurassic Period—meaning the reptile/amphibian predated the dinosaurs.

Petrified Forest NP

As for some kind of record for oldest animal fossil? Three hundred million years old doesn’t even make the traces of tetrapod a top contender. In Nevada, for example, paleontologists have found a 550-million-year-old digestive tract. And if further data confirms it, we may even have fossils from 860 million years ago.

The post 300-Million-Year-Old Fossil of Weird Reptile Found in Utah appeared first on Nerdist.

Italian city defies China, opens exhibit by dissident artist

Italy Dissident Chinese ArtistWriting on a panel reads in Italian "China is not near, BADIUCAO, works of a dissident artist" at the opening of artist Badiucao's exhibition in the Santa Giulia Museum, in Brescia, Saturday, Nov. 13, 2021. A provocative exhibit by dissident Chinese artist Badiucao opened Saturday in the industrial northern Italian city of Brescia despite pressure from the Chinese embassy in Rome to cancel it. A letter from the embassy included veiled economic threats, noting Italy’s trade with China, in a bid to prevent the first solo exhibit by Badiucao — the pseudonym used by the artist whose work takes aim at China's policies and human rights record. (AP Photo/Felice Calabro')Less

CHARLENE PELE
Sat, November 13, 2021, 5:26 AM·3 min read


BRESCIA, Italy (AP) — A provocative exhibit by dissident Chinese artist Badiucao opened Saturday in the industrial northern Italian city of Brescia despite pressure from the Chinese embassy in Rome to cancel it.

A letter from the embassy included veiled economic threats, noting Italy’s trade with China, in a bid to prevent the first solo exhibit by Badiucao — the pseudonym used by the artist whose work takes aim at China's policies and human rights record.

Brescia Mayor Emilio Del Bono “responded with delicacy and firmness,” said Elettra Stamboulis, curator of the exhibit at the city’s Museum of Santa Giulia.


“Of course we are always a little worried, not so much for the artist’s safety, but because we know there are more creepy ways to silence dissident artists," she said.

After a previous attempt to stage a solo show in Hong Kong in 2018 was canceled under pressure, Badiucao said he is “proud and happy” that the Brescia exhibit is finally open to the public.

“Because my art is always focusing on human rights issues in China ... it makes me almost the type of No. 1 enemy,’’ Badiucao said. “They hunt me down. They harass me, harass my families, threatening the people working with me constantly. So that is why, for me, it is really hard to actually having an exhibition in an established a gallery, a museum like this.”

The exhibition, which runs until Feb. 13, traces Badiucao’s artistic career from its start to most recent works created in response to the health crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. A former assistant to the Berlin-based Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, Badiucau currently works in exile from Australia.

The works range from oil paintings to installations and performance art. They include one that evokes a scandal involving tainted baby formula exported by China in 2018, another that recalls the Tiananmen Square massacre and yet another that represents the Umbrella Movement as part of the Hong Kong pro-democracy demonstrations quelled by China.

During the exhibit’s opening days, Badiucao will sit in a torture chair and read from a diary shared with him by a resident of Wuhan, the Chinese city where the coronavirus was first detected.

“Anyone who tried to tell the truth or some story different from China’s government’s narrative would be punished, so I made a public call on Twitter to the residents of Wuhan and said I’d like to share the burden and risk with you, if you trust me you can send your information,” Badiucao said.

The diary, which will be read in Mandarin, contains 100 days of records.

The artist kept his identity secret for many years, wearing masks during public appearances to protect his family members. The long-held secrecy drew comparisons to British graffiti artist Banksy, whose true identity remains shrouded in mystery.

But Badiucao said any comparison misses key points.

“If Banksy’s identity gets revealed he is not or she is not going to be hunted by the UK’s national security police, which in my case is totally different,” he said. “But also, I am really mad at Banksy, because he never does any artwork that criticizes the Chinese government.”

 

Cambodian labor leader among 18 activists freed from prison


FILE - In this July 29, 2020, file photo, Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions, uses a megaphone during a protest near the prime minister's residence in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. A Cambodian appeals court on Friday, Nov. 12, 2021, ordered the early release of five activists, including ong Chhun, a prominent labor leader who has been a longtime critic of the government. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith, File)

DAVID RISING and SOPHENG CHEANG
Fri, November 12, 2021

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — A Cambodian court on Friday released 18 activists, including a prominent labor leader who has been a longtime critic of the government.

The Phnom Penh Court of Appeals said it ordered the release of Rong Chhun and four others, but gave no immediate details about its decision. Am Sam Ath of the human rights group Licadho, which monitors prisons, said 13 additional people were freed later in the day.

Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions, had been in custody since July 2020 after the government said he spread false information.


He was convicted in August and sentenced to two years in prison on charges of inciting social unrest.

His attorney, Sam Sokong, said the appeals court cut that sentence to 15 months and 11 days, including time served.

Rong Chhun told cheering supporters outside the prison that he would continue his activities and urged all Cambodians to fight for freedom and human rights.

He said he was convicted unjustly and that the court should drop all charges against him and restore his rights in addition to releasing him early.

Also ordered released were two co-defendants, Ton Nimol and Sar Kanika, who were found guilty of incitement to commit a felony. They were arrested in August 2020 while demonstrating for the release of Rong Chhun, and each was sentenced to 20 months in prison in the same trial.

Two other activists in an unrelated case were also ordered to be released.

Labor leaders such as Rong Chhun hold significant political influence in Cambodia because they represent the vast number of workers in the textile industry, which is a major export earner. The major unions have historically aligned themselves with the political opposition to Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Rong Chhun served on the national election committee of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party before it was dissolved by court order in 2017, ahead of the 2018 general election.

The party's dissolution was generally seen as intended to ensure victory for Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party. Hun Sen has been in power for 36 years and has often been accused of heading an authoritarian regime.

In a separate case, rights groups called for the immediate release of two other opposition CNRP activists who were deported back to Cambodia from Thailand earlier in the week.

Voeun Veasna and Voeung Samnang were both wanted in Cambodia for charges related to online postings critical of the government.

The regional advocacy group ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights called for their immediate release and criticized Thailand, saying it was “unacceptable to return a refugee to a country where they are likely to face persecution.”

Human Rights Watch said Thailand's return of the two men “shows a blatant disregard for fundamental refugee protection principles.”

“The Thai government’s actions make it complicit in the Cambodian government’s persecution of its political opponents, which appears to extend beyond Cambodia’s borders," said Bill Frelick, the organization's refugee and migrants director.

Thai immigration authorities could not immediately be reached for comment.

___

Rising reported from Bangkok.

‘Enough Is Enough’: Thousands Sue the City of Houston and Freight Rail Company Following Reported ‘Cancer Clusters,’ Including Family of 13-Year-Old Who Died of Leukemia


Atahabih Germain
Thu, November 11, 2021

Latonya Payne, the legal guardian of her nephew Corinthian Giles, has sued the city of Houston, Texas, and Union Pacific Railroad after her nephew died from leukemia, which she believes was caused by toxic chemicals in the neighborhood.

Payne is one of thousands of individuals in Houston who have brought forward lawsuits that claim the railroad company is responsible for the ill effects they’ve suffered from their properties and groundwater being contaminated with toxic chemicals that came from the nearby rail yard for decades.

The lawsuit was filed last week in Harris County District Court and claims that Union Pacific attempted to cover up how serious the contamination was and furthermore, failed to clean it up. The suit also claims that the city of Houston failed to warn the residents of the potential dangers or reduce the risk of poisoning which several reports claimed caused cancer.

A woman is suing the city of Houston and Union Pacific railroad after her nephew, Corinthian Giles (above) died this summer from cancer she claims was due to chemical contamination from a rail yard near their Fifth Ward home. (Photo: screenshot/KHOU)

Following a five-year battle with his illness, Giles died July at 13. The young boy grew up two blocks away from Union Pacific’s Englewood Railyard and former creosote treatment plant in Houston’s Greater Fifth Ward area, where reportedly 100 properties were affected.

The creosote was used to treat railroad ties at the yard, which operated from 1895 to 1984 and become Union Pacific’s property in 1996 when the company bought the Southern Pacific Railroad.

The Environmental Protection Agency says creosote, a wood preservative, is a probable carcinogen, and waste creosote from the decades of use at Englewood is thought to have leached into the ground and formed an underground plume that has affected nearby homes.

In late 2019, Texas health officials confirmed the neighborhood has a cancer cluster, which is defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as “greater-than-expected number of cancer cases that occurs within a group of people in a geographic area over a period of time.”

In addition, six months before Giles’ death, last January, the state health department reported that the childhood leukemia Giles died from occurred five times more often than the national average.

In December 2020, health officials reported that, “The results of the analysis of 40 passive soil vapor gas samples conducted by a consultant for the Houston Health Department at locations over the groundwater plume associated with the Union Pacific Railroad site were received.”

They added, “Very few contaminants were detected and those that were detected were very low levels, close to the reporting limit. These data do not indicate inhalation risk from soil vapor contamination.”

“Children are dying from contamination that has been spreading for decades. Enough is enough. Union Pacific and the City of Houston need to accept responsibility and take action to remedy this tragedy immediately,” Giles’ attorney, Jason Gibson of The Gibson Law Firm said in a statement to Belle News. At this moment, it’s unclear what the plaintiffs are seeking as compensation.

UNITED SNAKES OF AMERICA

‘Nightmare material’: Timelapse shows rattlesnakes get rowdy after dark in Vermont



Mark Price
Fri, November 12, 2021, 5:48 AM·2 min read

A time-lapse video revealed rattlesnakes have a very active social life after dark in Vermont — much to the horror of viewers on social media.

The footage, shared Nov. 9 on Facebook, shows the ground was covered with venomous timber rattlesnakes, some appearing to be thick and several feet long.

At the center of the activity was a boulder, which apparently covers a large den. Snakes are seen slithering out from under the rock, then disappearing into the woods before reappearing, only to go back under the rock.

“In this video we see snakes of many ages, from young of year (the little ones) all the way to mature adults (the big ones) — a good sign,” state biologist Luke Groff said in the Facebook post.

It’s “good” because timber rattlesnakes are rare and endangered in the state, with only two populations known, according to the Vermont Fish and Wildlife. Both of those clans are in western Rutland County, which is in the central part of the state.

People on social media did not share Groff’s enthusiasm.

To them, the footage showed a lot of venomous snakes — hidden underfoot in the dark — looking for something to eat.

Or bite.

“Thanks for the nightmare material,” Beth Wallace wrote. “I’ve always considered us lucky not to have to deal with scorpions, snakes, killer spiders, murder hornets , etc. How much farther north do we have to go to be safe?!”

“These are scarier than bears!” Ruth Ann Letourneau said.

“I was not emotionally prepared for that,” Sara Giacherio Blondin posted.

“I think they should start burning the woods down in Vermont,” Kevin Duell added.

Groff recorded the video as part of his work with the state’s snake and turtle project. The monitoring project is being done in partnership with the Nature Conservancy in Vermont.

The time-lapse video is helping the state get “an accurate estimate of Vermont’s timber rattlesnake population.” The decline of the species is blamed on “bounties, human persecution, and habitat loss,” according to the Vermont Timber Rattlesnake Recovery Plan.

Vermont wildlife officials hope to see the rattlesnake population bounce back and spread, given their important role in the ecosystem: controlling rodents.

Terry Crews is getting roasted for starring in an Amazon ad where he excitedly works at one of the company's warehouses


Terry Crews is getting roasted for starring in an Amazon ad where he excitedly works at one of the company's warehouses



Ben Gilbert,Dominick Reuter
Thu, November 11, 2021

Terry Crews/Amazon

Actor Terry Crews is being dragged by critics for his latest Amazon commercial.

The ad features Crews excitedly exploring one of Amazon's fulfillment centers.

Amazon warehouse jobs have high turnover, which former employees say is because of how they're run.

"Brooklyn Nine-Nine" star Terry Crews is being criticized for his starring role in a new Amazon ad.

The ad, which Crews posted to his TikTok account on Tuesday, features Crews visiting an Amazon warehouse, participating in a variety of different jobs, and speaking to a handful of employees.

He lifts boxes, shrink-wraps a pallet of boxed goods, and preaches the many benefits of working in Amazon's warehouse jobs - jobs that have extraordinarily high turnover because of the demands and tedium of the work, Amazon warehouse staffers told Insider.

"Wait, I get to drive a forklift?" Crews says in the ad.

"I 'got' to drive a forklift for 15 years. I was never excited about it," one Twitter user said in response to the video. "As a matter of fact, EVERY DAY I would contemplate driving my car into a ravine on the way to do it."

These types of responses were littered across social media, especially on Crews' own TikTok account.

Terry Crews/TikTok

Amazon warehouses, which Amazon calls "fulfillment centers," are at the center of Amazon's e-commerce empire and enable the company to rapidly ship consumer goods around the US.

Current and former Amazon warehouse workers have repeatedly accused the company of putting productivity above workers, to the extent that employees are punished or fired for taking bathroom breaks that are deemed too long.

Employees whom Insider spoke with in June all cited similar issues: the monotonous nature of the work, the surveillance of their productivity, and the resulting rapid burnout.

Specifically, the current and former employees said entry-level warehouse jobs were most ripe for turnover, including "pickers," who pick items for orders, pack those orders into boxes, and get those boxes loaded into trucks.

"It's super tedious, and no one wants to do it," one employee in Michigan said.

These are among the many criticisms being leveled at Crews' new Amazon ad, to say nothing of the luxury watch he's wearing in it: It appears to be a Panerai Luminor Submersible watch, which is valued in the $20,000 to $30,000 range.

Amazon warehouse workers, making $18 an hour working full time, can expect to earn about $35,000 a year.

Check out the full ad on TikTok, or watch it below:

@terrycrews

##ad @Amazon has got gigs (and benefits) for days. So, check them out. Like now!♬ original sound - Terry Crews

Labor Is a Problem Around the World, Meat Supplier Says



Tatiana Freitas
Thu, November 11, 2021,

(Bloomberg) -- The world’s largest meat supplier is finding that a shortage of workers are affecting operations in every developed nation, limiting production increases and raising costs.

The issue is more acute in the U.S. though it also impacts operations in Europe, Canada and Australia, with a lack of direct and indirect workers, Andre Nogueira, head of JBS SA’s U.S. division, said Thursday during the Brazilian company’s earnings call.

“Labor shortages are holding back production growth,” he said. “This is a key issue for the industry.”

Staffing shortages aren’t necessarily cutting into existing production capacity, though the lack of workers is keeping JBS from expanding its output. JBS USA has a full team in pork and beef operations, though that doesn’t mean his division is delivering the same level of production using a similar number of employees as in the past, Nogueira said. Workers don’t accept Saturday shifts anymore. Labor shortages are also seen in the whole supply chain, affecting logistics.

JBS USA’s beef operational costs rose on more labor expenses and benefits in the third quarter, while its pork unit faced hurdles to hire truck drivers, the company said in its earnings statement. On chicken, production mix was less than optimal due to a lack of workers. In the U.K., JBS controlled companies faced hurdles to hire truck drivers as those from the European Union left following Brexit, adding to labor shortages in facilities.

“It’s structural adjustment in the meat industry,” Nogueira said.

U.S. court voids emissions rules for heavy-duty truck trailers


FILE PHOTO: Signage is seen at the headquarters of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington, D.C.

David Shepardson and Sebastien Malo
Fri, November 12, 2021,

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. appeals court on Friday tossed out greenhouse gas emissions rules for heavy-duty truck trailers, ruling two government agencies had exceeded their authority.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in 2016 set rules for the first time requiring trailer manufacturers to adopt fuel-saving technologies like side skirts and automatic tire pressure systems. An industry group challenged the rule, which was put on hold by the court pending the review.


The administration of then-President Barack Obama said it was important to regulate the fuel efficiency of the trailer portion of commercial tractor-trailers "because large tractor-trailers account for 60% of the fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions from heavy-duty vehicles."

The court ruled that if it allowed the trailer regulations, then "NHTSA could regulate bike racks, rooftop cargo carriers, or anything similar that would impact the fuel efficiency of a vehicle." The court added: "NHTSA can regulate tractors based on the trailers they pull, as can the EPA. But neither NHTSA nor the EPA can regulate trailers themselves."

The EPA said in 2016 as much as one-third of potential reductions in tractor-trailer emissions could be achieved through regulation of the trailer’s equipment and design alone.

The EPA and NHTSA did not immediately comment.

The Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association (TTMA), which had sued to block the rules, said it was still reading the ruling and did not immediately comment. The group had argued that the rules were improper because trailers do not consume fuel, as they are not self-propelled.

TTMA said earlier its members, which manufacture 90% of U.S. truck trailers, would incur "unrecoverable compliance costs," including from reconfiguring assembly lines.

(Reporting by David Shepardson and Sebastien Malo; Editing by Dan Grebler)

‘A refugee to the end’: Holocaust survivor asked to be buried with his passport

Avi Bajpai
Fri, November 12, 2021

It was the middle of the night in early November 1938 when Gestapo officers pounded on the door of the home of a Jewish family of four in Frankfurt, Germany.

Jim Muller was just 7 years old when he saw the officers take away his father, Felix, and send him to the Buchenwald concentration camp several hours away. When Muller’s father was eventually released and returned home, his head was shaven, he had lost a lot of weight, and he had bruises all over his body.

Years later, Jim Muller would remember how his father would sit at home and stare into space without talking. Meanwhile, his mother, Alice, was “frantically” trying to get her family out of the country.

As for Jim, while he was a young boy on the night known as Kristallnacht, the traumatic episode of fleeing his home and leaving everything behind stuck with him for the rest of his life, according to his son, Eric Muller, a law professor at UNC-Chapel Hill.

This week, ahead of the 83rd anniversary of Kristallnacht, Eric Muller decided he wanted to share his family’s story. On Tuesday, he wrote a series of posts on Twitter that offered a detailed account of his father and his family’s experience that night. He recounted their escape from Germany into Switzerland, and three years later, their arrival in the U.S., but also why that history remains relevant today.

And at the center of the story was his father’s passport, a document that showed how the Holocaust had shaped him in a profound way until his death this September.

“I loved my father, and he just passed away six weeks ago, and it’s one way of remembering him and of letting people know who my dad was,” Muller said in an interview with The News & Observer.

Jim Muller was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in May, and died on Sept. 28 at the age of 90.

In the Twitter thread that was shared more than 150 times and liked more than 400 times, Muller also wanted to remind people of the “human impact” of the brutal attacks on Jewish people in November 1938.

“It’s easy to look at the pictures of the shattered glass windows and the stores and the burning synagogues, and think about it as something that happened to buildings,” Muller said. “Rather than something that happened to people.”

‘Night of Broken Glass’

Violent mobs incited by Nazi officials began destroying synagogues and Jewish businesses across Germany and Austria during what the Nazis referred to as Kristallnacht (German for “Crystal Night” or “The Night of Broken Glass”). Nearly a hundred Jewish people were killed, and tens of thousands of Jewish men were arrested and taken to concentration camps, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

One of those men was Jim’s father, Felix, who was let go just weeks later. Another was Jim’s uncle, Leopold, who was killed at some point after being deported and sent to a concentration camp.

Eric Muller remembers stories about the family’s experience in Germany in the late 1930s were “much more on the factual side of things” and less so the emotional side.

His father and grandparents frequently talked about the history and gave their accounts of what happened during Kristallnacht, but there were things that weren’t talked about, including his grandfather’s experience in Buchenwald, or his great-uncle, who did not survive.

A pedestrian looks at the wreckage of a Jewish shop in Berlin Nov. 10, 1938, the day after the anti-Jewish pogrom that was labeled “Kristallnacht” — the “Night of Broken Glass” — when Nazis among them many ordinary Germans, terrorized Jews throughout Germany and Austria.

Eric learned how his father’s childhood had affected him when he went into his closet shortly after his death. He was looking for a belt, and found several, maybe eight, with zippers on the inside to carry money and important papers on his person at all times — such as a passport.

Jim had showed his son one of those belts when Eric was younger, and encouraged him to get one just like it. But, Eric said, he had no idea his father had so many of this kind.

“That’s a person who thinks they might need to be on the move on a moment’s notice,” Eric said. “There were these small ways in which he just kind of seemed to think you might just have to leave. You might just need to up and go.”

A young Jim Muller and his younger sister Beatrice Muller in Geneva, Switzerland, in either 1939 or 1940. The Mullers immigrated to the United States in April 1941.

Buried with his passport

Jim immigrated with his parents and sister to the United States in April 1941. He pursued his education here and studied law at the University of Pennsylvania before settling down with his own family in southern New Jersey, where he practiced commercial, bankruptcy and real estate law for six decades.

Even though he lived a comfortable, prosperous life in the U.S., and loved the country which had saved his family and enabled them to succeed, Jim “never left behind that sense of contingency and the possibility that what seems like security could slip away from you very quickly,” Eric said.

Eric Muller, right, next to his father Jim Muller, left, on Father’s Day in 2021. Jim Muller, a survivor of the Holocaust, died of cancer in September 2021.

After his cancer diagnosis, Jim told his son with a smile that the one thing he wanted to be buried with was his passport.

“I figured he was just playing with the absurdity of the idea,” Eric wrote on Twitter.

“Smiling back, I said, ‘Your passport, Dad? Do you really think you’ll need that where you’ll be?’” he continued.

“He looked me in the eye. ‘You never know, Eric. You just never know.’” he wrote. “He’d been secure in the United States for 80 years, but he was a #refugee to the end.”

At the end of the Twitter thread, Eric wrote that his father was correct, and included a photo from a white nationalist rally from Charlottesville, Virginia, that turned deadly in 2017.

In the final tweet, Eric posted a photo of Afghan refugees arriving in the U.S. in August following the collapse of the Afghan government, and wrote: “You just never know.”

“This is a time when there’s a great deal of controversy about how welcoming our country should be to refugees, and to people seeking asylum,” Eric said. “My dad felt, very strongly, that giving refuge to people who are in danger was a very important thing.”