I've the same problem with you when use passenger with nginx and nginx init script on ubuntu. The reason is that I use sudo service nginx restart(installed by init script) to start up nginx and it was running by root and the root did not get your login user environment variable. There are two solutions for this.
One is running nginx manually.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.