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I have a childhood habit of reading the last page first of any non-fiction book I’m diving into. I’m a fan of the Big Picture Summary, which is often found on the last page, the final flourish in the final graph from any writer worth their salt.
I did not do that with Friedrich Reck’s Diary of a Man In Despair, because from the very first page, I have not been able to put down the book, pausing only when life interrupts.
But last night, in a quiet moment, I flipped to the final diary entry, and then to the final paragraph in Richard J. Evan’s afterward.
Wish I hadn’t.
Wish the brilliant author’s real life story hadn’t ended up in Dachau.
I’m still hurting.
I’ll be writing much more about Reck’s book, which was a referral from Hannah Arendt, who cites his Diary in Eichmann in Jerusalem, which we will be discussing at the end of the month with Dr. Marci Shore. For a preview, I included a few notes from Diary in this post:
Just dashing off a quick note so you have an idea of how our calendar is shaping up for this month.
We have no meeting today.
All times are at 11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern, 7 pm UK.
Sunday, 11 October: Bette’s Speakeasy with NAFO founding member Matthew Pearce on his latest Substack post on historic conspiracies, where he notes: “A conspiracy theory does not need to be true, only useful. Debunking it does not end it. And Russia’s security services understood both points more than a century ago.”
Tuesday, 13 October: Bette’s Book Club/Happy Hour with French historian, David Colon, where we’ll learn more about his books on information warfare, including the upcoming Infodemic. You can read more from Colon here (it’s easy to translate into English):
And here is one of his reports, which I cross-posted in Bette:
Tuesday, 20 October: Bette’s Happy Hour — Part 2 of our disinformation tutorial with Dietmar Pichler, who shares his insights on the channels of Russian propaganda and subversion. Here is the invite to Part 1 from our August event for more details in advance of Part 2:
Sunday, 25 October: Bette’s Happy Hour tour of Sacred Spaces. I’ll be sharing photos from my travels through Europe of the many spiritual and sacred sites I’ve toured.
Tuesday, 27 October: Bette’s Book Club/Hair-raising Happy Hour with Dr. Marci Shore offering a master-class lecture on “Eichmann In Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil” by Hannah Arendt. Marci, an intellectual historian whose own book, The Ukrainian Night, is a must-read, calls Arendt one of her first loves and has given many lectures on the profoundly important work of the German philosopher and historian.
I will be sending out more details in advance of each event, with registration links for the Bette subscribers who wish to attend. If you are not yet a paid member, and would like to join our community events, please take out a membership here:
Thank you as always for your kind support.
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More info about Bette Dangerous: This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter, author, and broadcast news veteran, as well as former music and nightlife columnist for the Los Angeles Times. A No. 1 Amazon best-selling author and award-winning film director, Cuda writes the Hot Type column in Byline Times, an independent UK-newspaper. She executive produced the film Kherson: Human Safari. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism, arts, and culture reporting.
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Begin each day with a grateful heart.
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(Stonehenge in June)