What you do matters

That’s the title of a booklet from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.  It has pictures and stories of people who helped people escape during the Nazi terror in Europe.  Some were government officials, like Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania, who issued about 2000 visas for Jews to get to Japan and from there to safe countries.

Ukrainians Tatyana and Ania Kontsevich sheltered Shimon Redlich along  with his mother, aunt, and uncle in their attic and shed.  Ania, who was ten, was in charge of bringing them food and water. 

When the Germans occupied Serbia, the Mandils, a Jewish family from Belgrade, escaped to Albania.  Mr. Mandil opened a photography shop and hired Refik Veseli, a 16-year-old Albanian Muslim as his apprentice.  When the Mandils were threatened by deportation after Germany occupied Albania in 1943, Rafik Veseli convinced his parents to hide the Mandils in their home village.  The children posed as Muslims.  Their parents lived in the barn until liberation.

 

Celebrating the 250th

I’ve been to a number of meetings in which the participants have discussed celebrating the 250th anniversary  of the U.S.  They are using the Declaration of Independence as the starting point, although that was no sure thing in 1776.

I can let that slide.  What I can’t understand is how people can discuss celebrating when it is clear that we are losing our republic.  On Feb. 8 the Opinion Page of the New York Times contained a line graph of 12 Markers of Democratic Erosion.  One end of the line was democracy; the other autocracy.  For every marker the indicator was moving toward autocracy.

Here are the 12.  Incidentally, the two markers in which the indicator had moved the closest to autocracy were “Vilifying marginalized groups” and “Using power for personal gain.”

Stifling speech and dissent

Persecuting political opponents

Bypassing the legislature

Defying the courts

Declaring false emergencies

Using the military at home

Vilifying marginalized groups

Controlling information

Trying to take over universities

Creating a cult of personality

Using power for personal profit

Manipulating the law to stay in power

You look at that list and tell me what on earth we have to celebrate.  

Congrats to Brazil

Lucas Pinheiro Braathen won the gold medal for the Men’s Giant Slalom at the Olympic Winter Games.  It was the first gold medal won by Brazil at the any of the Winter Games.  In fact it was the first gold medal won by anyone from South America at the Winter Games.  Nice work.  

The midterms

It is obvious that Trump knows he is in for a drubbing at the midterms, so the Republicans are already gearing up to cheat on the elections.  They began months ago with the gerrymandering of congressional districts.  Now they are pushing for ID’s that many poor and older people and married women who changed their names won’t be able to produce.  

I will.  I have a passport.  How many MAGA people will be able to produce either a birth certificate or a passport?  This may backfire.  Of course, if they are white or carrying an assault rifle or wearing MAGA gear, the ID requirements will be waived.

Don’t worry about the elections being cancelled.  Russia holds elections.  Hungary holds elections.  Authoritarian governments don’t cancel elections; they rig them. 

The World We Live In

In a recent interview with Jake Tapper, Trump advisor Stephen Miller said “We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.”

I don’t like living in a world with Stephen Miller, but that sure does sum up the attitude of a lot of people in the Trump administration.  They don’t even pretend otherwise.  And they wear those cute little crosses around their necks.

The Rich Get Richer...

According to an article in the business section of today’s Times “The net worth of the top 1 percent of households climbed to a record share of nearly 32 percent of the national total in the third quarter of 2025, according to data from the Federal Reserve, which started tracking household wealth in 1989.”

I wonder if that has anything to do with a front page article in today’s Times

entitled “G.O.P.’S Cash Edge Gives Democrats Midterm Anxiety.”  

That article noted that Elon Musk himself had donated tens of millions of dollars in the last few months.

It is soon time for the torches and the pitchforks.  

Worshipping the Golden Ass

Exodus, Chapter 32, verses 2-4 (with some slight modifications)

2.  And Trump said unto them, Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters and bring them unto me.

3.  And all the Crypto Bros broke off their golden earrings which were in their ears and brought them unto Trump.

4.  And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten ass, 15 feet high, with a thinned-down tummy, and the Crypto Bros fell down and worshipped it, and he blessed them.

For more info see David Yaffe-Bellany, “A Golden Idol for President Trump Created by Memecoin Worshipers,” New York Times, (Feb. 11, 2026), pp. B-1, B-6.