Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Buildings, in general, typically serve a positive purpose in life. They protect us from the elements. They give us shelter, afford us some sense of privacy, and sometimes even help shape our identity depending on its purpose. Houses in particular become "homes" when one gains a sense of familial and emotional attachment by virtue of living in it.

True, they are just brick and mortar (and various other materials), and some are far more utilitarian than others, but overall a building is at worst just a building and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with its own existence.

Whenever I've read or researched about the Holocaust, I'm always struck in particular by the pictures of the gas chambers and crematoriums at Auschwitz and some of the other death camps.

Just the buildings themselves, nothing more.

From first glance, they look--like a lot of things associated with the Nazi regime--extremely banal and unordinary. Brick buildings with a tall chimney. Nothing screaming evil. Without context, one might confuse it for a home, or a warehouse, or some other regular sort of building.

And yet, in context the evil these mere buildings invoke is palpable and utterly horrifying.

The fact that they were even there. The fact that they were built--built with the same ordinary building materials as any other building would use. But built with a sole purpose that was so unspeakably evil it defies words.

The fact that human beings built these wretched--yet from the outside seemingly unextraordinary--buildings. Human beings built these buildings to facilitate the mass murder of other human beings, all because of a perverse ideology run completely amok. People built these buildings so that other people would die.

It just seems so unnatural and bizarre that these buildings actually stood, if even for a day. If even for a second. The ground should have swallowed it up whole and sent it back to the fiery hell from whence it came. Buildings that evil should never have been built by human hands.

But they did. And we are forced to remember that they did, in the hopes that human hands will never, ever build them again.

**NOTE: My purpose in writing this is not to say that these buildings shouldn't be kept as memorials to the atrocities that were committed there. Rather, it's a mere reflection on the fact that some how, some way they were ever built in the very first place.

A day after a hot mic caught President Joe Biden referring to him as a "stupid son of a bitch," Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy appeared in the White House Daily Briefing Room wearing a white cervical collar around his neck.

"I know, I know, my jarring physical appearance today might appear most upsetting to you, disturbing even," Doocy announced unprompted as several of his fellow journalists continued to jot down notes, unaffected. "But let it be known that I have voluntarily taken on these slings and arrows for all of you--all of us--my brothers and sisters in the vaunted Fourth Estate."

Several of Doocy's colleagues later questioned why he was wearing a medical neck brace given that he had merely been the subject of an off-hand verbal quip by the President, but were at a loss as to how to exactly breach the subject to the Fox correspondent at the time.

"No doubt, these harrowing events have been most difficult for me," Doocy continued. "They have been both emotionally and physically trying at times. Thankfully, my spirits remained buoyed by the people who have supported me throughout my career of journalistic excellence. My friends, my workmates, my wife--"

"Your father?" one of Doocy's colleagues added.

"Yes, my father, too," Doocy continued. "But merely as a means of moral support and moral support alone. My father has always been there to give the occasional 'Ay, attaboy,' or 'Go get 'em, Tiger,' but make no mistake about it, my position at this most prestigious media network is strictly a matter of my own hard work and achievement and nothing else."

Doocy went on to stress how his recent ordeal would not deter him as a "beacon of our cherished First Amendment press freedoms."

"You may be tempted to think I am alone in this situation," Doocy began. "That what has befallen me is something that is completely without precedent. But I tell you now, that is far from the truth! The scourge of persecution of journalists by tyrannical regimes is truly a worldwide conundrum! The free media declared as 'enemies of the people!' Reporters thrust into dank, dark prisons for attempting to reveal the truth! Journalists killed, either by means made to look as though an accident or straight out murder in broad daylight! Correspondents forced to endure barely audible mild profanities! Oh, how we have suffered--how we have all suffered so terribly, all one in the same!"

However, Doocy remained defiant throughout his impromptu briefing room address.

"I tell you now, though, we will never be silenced!" he proclaimed. "What I have so painfully endured I voluntarily accept in the name of the unvarnished truth for all to see and consume! For no matter what befalls us, they will never take our...Oh, by the way, has anyone else tried that new Thai place on G Street? They have this Dragon Roll that is just amaze-balls! Who else wants to come with when all this shit is done?"

DETAILS AT ELEVEN

Unfortunately for them, Aaron Rodgers refused to take a shot…

Eric Trump, the son of former President Donald J. Trump and a key figure in his father's various business endeavors, accidently exposed himself to further potential legal liability when during a deposition in a case brought by the New York Attorney General's office against the Trump Organization, he repeated stated that he wished "to assert my Third Amendment privilege."

It is the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that permits a person to refuse to answer questions under oath due to fear of self-incrimination; on the other hand, the Third Amendment protects one from being forced to quarter military personnel on his or her property during times of peace.

"It happens," noted one legal expect. "I'm not saying it happens a lot, but I'm sure it happens. People get up to testify, they know they have to assert a privilege under an amendment, but they just can't remember which one. I'm sure Eric probably knew it was an odd numbered amendment, but unfortunately for him, he was two amendments off."

"You know what, now that I think about it, I actually don't think this has ever happened before," the legal expert ultimately was forced to admit. "Like, never."

Meanwhile, Trump's invocation of his Third Amendment rights created further unanticipated complications, as a unit of the Florida National Guard that had been taking up residence at Trump's Jupiter, Florida home was forced to quickly vacate the premises immediately upon Trump having raised his Constitutional privilege.

"Do I like the guy's dad?" asked one Guardsman. "No. Did I vote for his dad? Also, no. Do I even like Eric Trump? Again, no. Frankly, he's a bit of a simpleton, and I'm playing it nice saying it like that. But I have to admit, he has one majorly sick pad and I, for one, am going to miss it a lot."

The National Guard unit had been staying at Trump's house for a period of no less than six months, for reasons that the unit's commander described as "just because." During this time period, members of the unit enjoyed unfettered access to the five bedroom, seven bathroom mansion and amenities such as a fully stocked professional chef's kitchen, a backyard pool and spa, and home theater with a 96 inch television.

"Eric does not cheap out on streaming services," a Guardsman said. "Of course you're going to have Netflix, Hulu and Disney+. That's a given anywhere. But the guy also has streaming services you and I have never heard of before. Like Puppetta--that's a streaming service that offers films and shows exclusively featuring puppets. Puppets! How wild is that?"

"Also, Tubi," the Guardsman added. "People sleep on Tubi, calling it an inferior streaming service and complaining about being forced having to sit through commercials. But you get some real hidden gems on there that you might not find on Netflix. Like last night, I watched a really good Finnish drama called Veri ja Puuro set during that country's civil war in 1918. It was really good. You ought to check it out."

Meanwhile, back as it relates to Eric Trump's unforced legal error in his testimony, Trump's invocation of the wrong amendment means that various admissions he made during the course of his deposition may come back to haunt him down the road.

"I could see real problems when he admitted that he used the entire proceeds of a Trump Foundation charity ball to purchase a fleet of Rolls Royce manufactured golf carts for the Trump Westchester club," one legal expert explained. "And when he talked about that time where he, his dad and his brother and sister all discussed valuing their New York tower for tax purposes as one might value an abandoned mussel factory in Southern Alabama. I could see that biting him in the end."

"But at least he'll have some peace and quiet at home again," he noted.

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