Talking to Josh Menchions: a productive area of negotiations.

This linked-to article, here, will give you some sense of why nobody wants "to stand up to" this guy, no matter how despicable he may be, no matter how many enemies his defamation campaigns (and his "career" of petty conniving against comedians) may earn him: although his comedy constantly addresses the fact that he's an object of pity, he doesn't realize that this same pity conceals the extent to which he's despised. Or, at least, it allows him to deceive himself: he is, in fact, a rare example of someone far more hated than I. And for worse reasons, of course.

I was not exaggerating when I said that people warned me about him on the very first day that I arrived in this city, and I am not exaggerating when I say that other comedians told me that Josh had made their lives miserable, however, they are all willing to suffer in silence while this guy plays his self-appointed role as the king of comedy. And, again, we all know why: pity, a slow poison endured by both the poisoner and the poisoned.

—————

Dude, you should hear Melissa's side of the story.

Chris gets on stage and says terrible things about his ex-wife.

You never hear his ex-wife's perspective.

Chris isn't banned from the club.

Luke makes jokes about his ex-girlfriend.

You never hear his ex-girlfriend's perspective.

Luke isn't banned from the club.

You've banned me from these two clubs because of a story you made up in your own head, and it just isn't true.

Melissa doesn't blame me: Melissa doesn't think I did anything wrong.  And she uploaded both YouTube videos in which she's speaking alone,

and also YouTube videos in which she's talking to me, AFTER the breakup.

I don't think Chris or Luke (or Mav) are gonna do a podcast with their ex-girlfriends the way I did, bro.

E.M.

—————

[I am omitting his reply, out of some strange sense of chivalry.]

—————

Okay, cool:

problem solved.

If that's your story, there's clearly no reason for any hostility or conflict between us.

See you tonight at the club.

E.M.

—————

[Again, I am omitting his replies here. It should be intuitively obvious that they contributed very little to the conversation.]

—————

So what do you wanna do tonight?

You want to drink a cup of coffee sitting at the same table and actually get to know me?

Or do you wanna act like we're enemies for no reason at all?

Yeah, dude, I've had positive feedback from many comedians who appreciated my filming short clips of them: they say things like, "Oh, great, can you send that to me, I'm gonna post it on my Instagram?"

Some asked me if I'd captured a good moment of them after a set.

Many comedians here actually do regard filming from the audience positively, and they've told me this: they like the fact that they'll get free promotion and reach a few more viewers.

If you have a house policy that nobody should be filming, fine: I'll put the camera away, and it's done.  No reason for any conflict.

Nobody has ever said that to me before, but I can totally understand the policy: if you don't want people to have their phones out, let them know, or let me know, and I'll follow the rules.

You've never said that to me before, but now, all of a sudden, it's an excuse to ban me.

You and I have no reason to be enemies: I don't think you're stupid enough to believe stories made up about me and my ex-girlfriend, Melissa...

when (1) you've met Melissa, and (2) you can hear her attitude in any podcast or video, any time (unlike Chris's ex-wife, unlike Luke's ex-girlfriend).

You're creating a conflict out of nothing.

E.M.

Esoteric. Occult. Even spiritual. Nihilism.

This was stated in response to my newly minted maxim, "But there are no lessons of history. There is only history."

Cf. "What I do is esoteric: I don't explain anything to anyone." https://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2026/06/what-i-do-is-esoteric-i-dont-explain.html

And, in politics, when men become tired of talking they become dangerous.

Many years ago I observed that Joe Biden's policies, once elected, could be described as "Hyper-Trumpian" (or, perhaps, as "Hyper-Trumpism") —and we now see a similar pattern amongst the opponents of Donald Trump in Canada. Under several different headings, Canadians are implementing policies that are more Trumpian than Trump himself.

You may well say, "Canada has not yet had dead bodies in the street as a result of immigration raids, as the Americans had in Minneapolis." Indeed, not yet. The removal of "more than one million Indians" from a country the size of Canada could entail many brutal episodes of the Minneapolis sort. Or, instead, there may be no expulsions at all, entailing a different kind of scandal.

How we ended up with the headline number being one million rather than two million, I cannot say: "According to data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada or IRCC approximately 1,053,000 work permits expired by the end of 2025 and another 927,000 will do so in 2026." [I am quoting Anirudh Bhattacharyya, as published in the Hindustan Times, Dec 31, 2025.] Perhaps the reasoning behind using one million as a round number is that roughly half of these two million immigrants are migrants from India, specifically?

The actual numbers of people being expelled are rather smaller: 1,712 Indian citizens were deported from Canada in the first three months of 2026, reportedly. This is in the context of an overall decline in the country's population of 55,000 during the same three months, reportedly attributable to both these declining numbers of immigrants and also the inclement contrast between the number of births and the number of deaths this year.

If we set aside the differences in rhetoric and rationalization, what is the difference between current Canadian and American policies on ecology and the environment? On the gas and oil industry? And, finally, on the topic of immigration?

What Canada is now doing under these (Trumpian) headings is made more significant because the results of the policies are immediately palpable: many, many other promises will remain as mere abstractions on a chalkboard for decades —perhaps forever.

Here is the National Post presenting you with a series of salient graphs and statistics: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-immigration-data

I am not the sort of imbecile to say, "This is the meaning of the word Liberal, therefore, if your party is called the Liberal Party, this is what your political promises and policies must be." I am a nihilist who sees in words something less than an imperfect tool made to imprecisely express culturally conditioned meanings —less, not more. And, unlike Plato, I cannot imagine anything profound in the gap between the imperfect use of words and our supposedly perfect intended meanings: I find nothing there to be believed in. However, the meaning of the word Liberal has now changed —suddenly— for reasons that nobody is willing to talk about. And, in politics, when men become tired of talking they become dangerous.

Is Bad Writing Better than No Writing at All?

Link to the video on my (still obscure!) creative writing channel, From Ink to Inc. = https://youtu.be/9hBxBy1nnQs

Link to the video on my (still obscure!) autobiographical channel, à-bas-le-ciel = https://youtu.be/aVUpaEKRwsw

House of the Dragon Season 3, Episode 2. Yes, that's William Shakespeare in the thumbnail. You're lucky I didn't include Seneca. #hotd #asoiaf #hotdseason3 #season3 #s3 #grrm #gameofthrones For those who don't know, "ASOIAF" = A Song of Ice and Fire, a broader category (of books) that includes both House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones.

1971: Richard Nixon's Other Genocide.

Today we have a seemingly bland headline in The Daily Star,¹ Bangladesh-China ties enter a ‘new era’. This is actually quite dramatic news, if you're aware of trail of dominoes tracing back to 1971. Dead bodies and dominoes, I suppose.

The salient Wikipedia article is simply titled, Bangladesh Genocide.² And that title is itself a sort of political declaration. Some people say that 3,000,000 died. Some say 300,000. Some say 30,000. But we all say genocide. And we all blame Nixon and Mao —who were engaged in negotiations, at the time, and who both felt they needed Pakistan (or, rather, "West Pakistan") to continue to be their ally —partly but not entirely because of those negotiations.

This article reflects "the state of the art" in anonymous authors counterposing contradictory sources —and it is a dying art form. In 2026, this tapestry of many patches (and many tailors) is now being replaced by the A.I. synopsis of unseen sources. Here's a telling excerpt:

Australian Doctor Geoffrey Davis was brought to Bangladesh by the United Nations and International Planned Parenthood Federation to carry out late term abortions on rape victims. He was of the opinion that the 200,000 to 400,000 rape victims were an underestimation. On the actions of [the] Pakistan army he said "They'd keep the infantry back and put artillery ahead and they would shell the hospitals and schools. And that caused absolute chaos in the town. And then the infantry would go in and begin to segregate the women. Apart from little children, all those were (sic) sexually matured would be segregated. And then the women would be put in the compound under guard and made available to the troops ... Some of the stories they told were appalling. Being raped again and again and again. A lot of them died in those [rape] camps. There was an air of disbelief about the whole thing. Nobody could credit that it really happened! But the evidence clearly showed that it did happen." [better source needed]

In October 2005, Sarmila Bose published a paper suggesting that the casualties and rape allegations in the war have been greatly exaggerated for political purposes. Whilst she received praise from many quarters, a number of researchers have shown inaccuracies in Bose's work, including flawed methodology of statistical analysis, misrepresentation of referenced sources, and disproportionate weight to Pakistani Army testimonies.

Historian Christian Gerlach states that "a systematic collection of statistical data was aborted, possibly because the tentative data did not substantiate the claim that three million had died and at least 200,000 women had been raped."

Is it possible, now, for Bangladesh and China to become allies instead of enemies? The political elite in India still bitterly resents the decisions Americans made circa 1971 —although, of course, there would be more utterly immoral decisions to come. It is difficult to imagine that the political elite in Bangladesh would blame the Chinese less.

All of this, of course, is connected to Cambodia. I cannot say the two are parallel, nor that they are intersecting: they are two points on one and the same straight line.

Justin Trudeau and the Khalistani phenomenon are linked to a relatively minuscule massacre from 1984 with a Wikipedia article merely titled Operation Blue Star to describe it, utterly lacking the word genocide, you will observe, although there's a similarly bizarre range of estimates as to how many died (from a few dozen to a few hundred to more than five thousand, etc.) with a similar struggle on the part of the anonymous authors contrasting ostensibly respectable sources raising their eyebrows at one another. My point here is merely that this "minor massacre" is enough to put Canada in a position of permanent and perpetual hatred, although Justin Trudeau's connection to it is far more tangential than the connection between Nixon (and Mao) and East Pakistan in 1971.

I have purchased a copy of Joe Sacco's (relatively recent) book, the Once and Future Riot. Whether or not it was the intention of the author, this book will doubtless make an important political myth out of an even smaller massacre, the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013. Although this is certainly a massacre important enough to be remembered within India, it was never remembered outside of India for long enough to be forgotten before Joe Sacco's book made this myth out of it.

I have always heard socialists say that we must learn the lessons of history. But there are no lessons of history. There is only history.

—————

Footnote 1: https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/diplomacy/news/bangladesh-china-ties-enter-new-era-4209866

Footnote 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_genocide

Finnish history in the Soviet period… from a uniquely Canadian perspective.

This documentary film (made by and for the National Film Board of Canada) is now impossible to find a copy of, impossible to pay to see via streaming services, etc.

https://www.nfb.ca/film/letters_from_karelia/

The topic here is taboo in the extreme, whereas "the opposite" story is commonly told: ethnic Finns and Karelians escaping from Communism in the Soviet Union / Russia (to live in Finland itself, or sometimes in the United States and Canada).

The reality is that people moved in both directions: there were Finnish and Karelian people voluntarily signing up to become a part of the utopian experiment.  To what extent those people were honest with their children and grandchildren thereafter is an open question.

Keep in mind that even in Japan there were always a few Japanese and Ainu (in each generation) who would flee north over the Sakhalin Island border to sign up for Soviet citizenship, voluntarily.

My impression is that Finns still exoticize Karelians, regarding them as significantly different from the Finns of the west coast —not merely in their accent and religion but even in their physical appearance.  

—————

The 2005 documentary Letters from Karelia (directed by Kelly Saxberg) chronicles the tragic "Karelia Fever" of the 1930s, when hundreds of idealistic Finnish Canadians emigrated to the Soviet Union seeking a socialist utopia. It centers on the personal story of Aate Pitkänen, an electrician who left Thunder Bay, Ontario, for Karelia in 1931.

While many migrants faced crushing hardships, typhoid outbreaks, and Stalin's Great Purge, Aate's ultimate fate remained a mystery after he was separated from his family and disappeared in 1941. Over sixty years later, his unmailed letters from a Finnish prisoner-of-war camp were discovered. These letters reveal his dramatic journey from a communist pioneer and USSR ski champion to a Soviet spy, ultimately uniting his sister, Taimi, with the son he never met.

—————

[UPDATE:] https://vimeopro.com/shebafilms/shebafilms/video/20276087

^ One of my viewers, Evan, sent in a working link.  It is evidently being distributed, for free, on the creator's Vimeo.

In Defense of Bad Writing: ASOIAF & HOTD

LINK: https://youtu.be/1yuYGg5zZsA

House of the Dragon Season 3. #hotd #asoiaf #hotdseason3 #season3 #s3 #grrm #gameofthrones For those who don't know, "ASOIAF" = A Song of Ice and Fire, a broader category (of books) that includes both House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones.

[Other voices:] Maailman onnellisin maa

The last time I really listened to music "in my target language" was back when I was studying Cambodian. Kommando Tehtävä are probably too left wing for me… but they're certainly of more interest than the average Beijing punk band.

Joku taas rappukäytävään oksentaa
Viikonloppuisin baarissa turpaan saa
Viinanhuuruista melankoliaa
Joka neljäs meistä lottoaa

Someone is throwing up in the stairwell again
You get a mouthful at the bar on weekends
Melancholy from alcohol fumes
One in four of us plays the lottery

Kyllä Suomi on maailman paras maa
Täällä Karpollakin riittää asiaa
Hengitysilmastakin veroa kai maksaa saa
Korkeakulttuuria Salkkarit toimittaa

Yes, Finland is the best country in the world
There is enough to do here in Karpo
I guess you have to pay a tax on the air you breathe
High culture delivered by Salkkarit*

[A Finnish TV "soap opera" that has been broadcasting continuously since 1999: like my own life, it's just one sex scandal after another, apparently.] 🦓

Ei täällä töissäkäynti kannata
Suomessa ei saa rikastua
Köyhiltä tuet pois leikataan
Ne säästötoimiksi meikataan
Kyllä Suomi on maailman paras maa
Täällä Karpollakin riittää asiaa
Hengitysilmastakin veroa kai maksaa saa…

It's not worth working here
You can't get rich in Finland
They're cutting subsidies for the poor
They're pretending to be austerity measures
Yes, Finland is the best country in the world
There's plenty to do here in Karpo too
I guess you have to pay tax even on the air you breathe…

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9uXpWOodss 

Book vs. Show: "Family Honor" in ASOIAF and HOTD.

Link to the video on "From Ink to Inc.", a relatively unknown channel: https://youtu.be/gMfIwIWJ6vo

I will, eventually, also upload this to à-bas-le-ciel —my well-established channel that nevertheless remains utterly unknown. ;-) 

Josh Menchions: the King of Comedy. In Newfoundland.

 
LINK: https://youtu.be/Nh9PzrLARcQ