Tag: The Holocaust

Too Busy Playing Golf and Banning Books

I look back fondly on “the good old days” when I wrote a weekly blog. I hoped to limit myself to just two posts this week, but things quickly got out of hand.

In case you’ve missed a post, this week I’ve blogged about the three books I read last month, and Harriet Tubman and slavery being temporarily scrubbed from the “Underground Railroad” webpage of the National Park Service. Some 130,000 government webpages have gone dark since January 20, 2025. Sort of a digital book burning, don’t you think?

Tomorrow’s blog post will be about a variety of things going on in the Trump Administration along with an update on the status of Mr. Abrego Garcia. On Friday I plan an open letter to Trump supporters.

Last week, the No Dollars for Dictators Act before the US Senate got almost no attention. That and the hypocrisy of the Party of Family Values (i.e., Republican Party) in the US House of Representatives begged for a blog post. Those are the two items I started with for today’s post, but it grew in direct proportion to the news coming out of Washington. In fact, I’ve split it between today and tomorrow.

Today’s post underwent a lot of additions and editing. I hope I caught all my typos and grammatical errors.

What’s going on?

We’ve all been distracted by wildfires, tornadoes, floods, volcano eruptions, earthquakes, tariffs, massive federal employee firings, and massive layoffs in the automobile and related industries. It’s impossible to catch all the news, so in my blog today and tomorrow I will mention a few that I have heard or read about.

The massive tariffs on 185 countries took effect at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, April 3 and by Friday afternoon, April 4 the President was on his way to a four-day golf weekend in Florida where he miraculously won his own tournament. (You know how you have to let a toddler win a game so they won’t cry? Just sayin’.)

His golf game prevented his being able to go to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Friday to accept the bodies of the four US soldiers from Camp Stewart, Georgia, who died in Lithuania. We all have our priorities. Thank you, Lithuania, for the respectful ceremony you had to send the soldiers’ bodies home. That’s the way dead soldiers should be honored.

On March 26, Trump called himself “the fertilization president” (which was beyond creepy!) but on April 2 he cut all the funding for the Department of Health and Human Resources office that monitors the success rates at the in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics across the nation. Patients considering IVF used to find such information helpful in selecting a clinic… back in the day… you know, back in March, 2025.

We’re left to wonder if Trump (a) was just saying what his audience wanted to hear on March 26, or (b) he still doesn’t know what IVF is, or (c) he already knew the office was going to be shut down a week later, or (d) he didn’t and still doesn’t care. Based on his track record, my hunch is that all those scenarios are true.

The US eventually sent three people to Myanmar to help with earthquake recovery. They worked for a company under contract with the government. They’ve already been fired and the contract cancelled.

And the little bit of food aid the US State Department originally said they would keep giving after USAID was trashed? They’ve already pulled the plug on that.

On Air Force on this past Sunday, Trump was asked about sending US-born prisoners to prisons in other countries. He told reporters that he is open to the idea. In fact, he said, “I love that.” He also said that the tariffs were “going very well.” It makes you wonder where he gets his information. Perhaps from all the “yes men” who surrounded him.

The Harriet Tubman/Underground Railroad webpage I wrote about yesterday has been restored, but most of the 130,000 government web pages that have gone dark under the Trump Administration have not been restored, and there’s no reason to think they will be. This amounts to a digital book burning.

The Defense Department removed the Holocaust remembrance pages from its website in the name of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” History is being erased before our very eyes, folks.

Maya Angelou’s autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and books about the Holocaust, histories of feminism, civil rights, and racism were among 381 titles removed from the Nimitz Library at the  U.S. Naval Academy last week.

A few of the other books on the list:

  • Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America, by Eric Michael Dyson
  • The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies, by Scott E. Page
  • No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing for Social Justice, by Karen L. Cox
  • Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World, by Wil Havgood
  • How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi

I read No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing for Social Justice, by Karen L. Cox in July 2021 an wrote about it in my August 2, 2021, blog post, 2 Books about Racial Injustice. I was literally reading the book as a statue of Robert E. Lee sitting on his horse, Traveler, was being taken down in Richmond, Virginia, so it was a hot topic.

In No Common Ground, Dr.Karen L. Cox writes about the history of the Confederate statues, and I came to understand that they weren’t erected to honor the Confederate soldiers and officers as much as they were built out of a place of hate. Please take time to read my takeaways from reading the book four years ago.

The author, Karen L. Cox, is a professor emerita of history at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where she taught from 2002 until 2024. She is currently writing a book about the Great Migration, the Black press, and early Chicago jazz through the tragic Rhythm Club fire, which took the lives of more than 200 African Americans in Natchez, Mississippi in 1940. It will probably be banned by the Trump Administration, too.

I listened to How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi in June 2020 and wrote about in in my July 20, 2020 blog post, Three Books Read in June 2020. I invite you to read that blog post. I started my comments saying, “There are many eye-opening things to take from Ibram X. Kendi’s book, How to Be An Antiracist, but the most important lesson I learned from reading it is the difference being “not racist” and “antiracist.” I’ve been guilty of saying, “I’m not a racist.” It’s possible I’ve even said, although I hope I haven’t, “I’m not a racist, but….” “But” says, “Oh yes you are!”

In the words of Mr. Kendi in his book, “What’s the problem with being ‘not racist?’ It is a claim that signifies neutrality…. The opposite of racist isn’t not racist it is antiracist.”

I’ve read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou, and I thought I’d read Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America, by Eric Michael Dyson. I haven’t found Mr. Dyson’s book on my list of books read or in my old blog posts, so maybe I meant to read it but never got around to it.

The US Naval Academy is essentially the midshipmen’s university, so what university would ban books? The Trump Administration has a basic lack of understanding of the purpose of higher education. Midshipmen should have easy access to any book they want to read! After all, they are 18 to 22 years old and can make their own decisions about many things, including which books to read.

I cannot understand why anyone thinks books should be banned from the Nimitz Library.

To my Republican friends and relatives who voted for Trump, “Is this what you thought you were voting for?”

I sincerely hope this level of cruelty isn’t what you wanted. If it is, I had no idea how miserable your life was.

The No Dollars for Dictators Act

As the stock market continued to be in free fall due to the tariff announcement, the US Senate had important business to tend to: “The No Dollars for Dictators Act.” It was introduced by Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) and co-sponsored by Senators Rick Scott (R-FL), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Jim Justice (R-WV), John Barrasso (R-WY), and Chuck Grassley (R-IA).

Senator Scott was quoted as saying, “The No Dollars for Dictators Act will protect U.S. tax dollars from fueling the evils of dictators or terrorists who seek to destroy our way of life.” It wasn’t voted on.

Supposedly aimed at China, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, and Syria, it begs the question, “Why isn’t Donald Trump’s name on that list?” He’s doing more to “destroy our way of life” than any of the countries on the list.

Just wondering….

A Proposal to Allow New Parents to Vote by Proxy in the US House

And while we’re talking about the US Congress… As of April 1, we know that it was quite all right for old white men in the US House of Representatives to vote in absentia during the Covid-19 pandemic, but female members of the House cannot vote in absentia the day after they’ve had a baby.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson suddenly sent the House members home on April 1 to block a vote that would allow US Representatives (male or female) to vote by proxy for up to three months after the birth of a child.

The House did not meet for the rest of the week because Johnson was afraid the bill might be brought to a vote.

A strange compromise has been reached between Johnson and Representative Anna Paulina Luna, who was pushing for the right to vote by proxy. Luna announced the compromise on Sunday, April 6.

This is how CBS News reported the “deal” reached by the two: “a deal to use vote pairing – an agreement between an absent member and a member who is physically present and plans to vote on the opposite side of the question, effectively canceling out the vote. The present member casts their vote, then withdraws it and announces that they have paired with the absent member. The vote is not included in the vote total, but their positions are published in the Congressional Record.”

WHAT?

It sounds to me like not only does the new parent’s vote now not count, but a Representative on the opposite side of an issue must also, in effect, forfeit their vote. Having their positions recorded in the Congressional Record means very little. Every word uttered on the floor of Congress is recorded and published daily in the Congressional Record, but no one reads it.

Am I missing something? This sounds convoluted to me and the end result is that the new parent essentially still doesn’t get to vote. And the wording is troubling. The new parent has to find someone who “plans” to vote in the opposite way. It sounds like they aren’t bound by their “plans.”

What about the logistics? What if that new parent is in labor or their spouse is in labor?. That time isn’t conducive for the Representative or the spouse to be calling around to find a Representative on the opposite side of the issue who is amenable to forfeiting their vote.

Surely, this could have been handled better! Let’s be honest. All that was wanted was for a nursing mother to be able to cast her vote from home instead of bringing her infant with her to the floor of Congress so she could cast a vote. That’s really what this boils down to, but most of the men in Congress would rather that she just stay home and keep her mouth shut. They don’t want her in Congress. Period.

Mid-Term Elections Reminder

Here’s a reminder for US Representatives and voters:  Mid-term elections are scheduled for November 3, 2026, and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives will be up for grabs!

Some voters are paying attention. Many members of Congress and some members of the media like to say that only people “who live inside the Beltway” around Washington, DC ever pay attention or care what’s happening there. They might be surprised 19 months from now just how much we have seen, heard, and remember.

Millions of Americans took to the streets in non-violent protests on April 5. There is a ray of hope!

Until my next blog post tomorrow

I hope you have a good book to read.

Pay attention.

Remember the people of Kentucky, Myanmar, Thailand, Ukraine, and western North Carolina.

Janet

Holocaust Survivors and Osage Murders

August brought with it a host of good reading. The problem is, when I’m distracted by lots of good books to read, I don’t spend as much time as I should spend writing. The two go hand-in-hand. I’ve read from many sources that you can’t be a good writer if you don’t read a lot. Of course, you can’t be a good writer if you don’t spend time writing. Maybe this month I’ll strike a good balance.

 

Among the Living, by Jonathan Rabb

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Among the Living, by Jonathan Rabb

Among the Living is a novel about a 31-year-old Jewish man, Yitzhak Goldah, who survived The Holocaust and came to live with his cousin, Abe Jesler and Jesler’s wife, Pearl, in Savannah, Georgia in 1947.

The tone of the book is set early on as the author reveals Mr. Goldah’s sense of humor and ability to take life in stride. For instance, on the way home from the train station, Goldah’s cousin and his wife inform him that they are changing his name to “Ike.” Yitzhak doesn’t like the idea, but he accepts this in an effort to not cause a rift with these generous cousins.

It quickly become obvious that Pearl Jesler is going to treat “Ike” like he’s a child. As if that’s not enough, she smothers him with kindness. And she talks all the time – many times saying the wrong thing.

This is by no means a humorous book, but there are constant undertones of “Ike” knowing exactly what the Jeslers are doing but choosing not to confront them about his treatment.

Abe Jesler is in the retail shoe business and is well-connected in Jewish circles in Savannah. Much to Pearl’s chagrin, though, they are not in the uppermost crust of Jewish society. The book does a good job of depicting the social and business lives of Jews in post-World War II Savannah.

There is intrigue as Abe gets involves in some shady business dealings at Savannah’s port. Ike’s profession before the war was that of a journalist, so he gets acquainted with the local newspaper editor and starts writing for the paper. This had the two-fold benefit getting Ike into the profession he loved and out of Abe’s retail shoe business.

Ike also became involved with the newspaper editor’s daughter, which lends a bit of romance to the book. When Ike’s pre-war thought-to-be-dead fiancée suddenly appears in Savannah, Ike’s life gets quite complicated.

The book also addresses the feelings of guilt held by American Jews because they weren’t directly faced with the horrors of The Holocaust and the guilty experienced by the survivors of the concentration camps because they survived.

After reading an article by Jonathan Rabb, “Trigger Warnings in Historical Fiction,” (http://www.readitforward.com/authors/trigger-warnings/) I sought out his latest book, Among the Living. I’ll definitely read some of his other books.

One of my takeaways from Mr. Rabb’s online article about history and writing about history is the following:

“But history is offensive. The past is filled with oppression and murder, rape and slavery, torture and madness, often celebrating each within its own context. And, as painful as it might be, there is something valuable to be learned when we confront who we have been, and who we continue to be. We cannot be so arrogant or naïve as to think that we have somehow stepped beyond our baser instincts or that by avoiding them we prove they no longer exist.” ~ Jonathan Rabb

 

Killers of the Flower Moon:  The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, by David Grann

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Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, by David Grann

This nonfiction book was a real eye opener for me. I knew that Native Americans have always gotten the short end of the stick from the US Government, but I knew nothing about the history of the Osage Tribe in Oklahoma until I saw the author, David Grann, interviewed about his book on TV. The story was fascinating, so I immediately got on the waitlist for the book at the library.

In a nutshell, this book is the story of how the lives of the Osage were turned upside down in the early 1900s when oil was discovered on their land. They had wisely purchased land and acquired all mineral rights. Unfortunately, their wise decisions became their undoing when they became wealthy. The government deemed them incapable of handling their own finances and assigned each headright holder a white guardian to oversee their spending even for the most mundane personal hygiene items.

This had trouble written all over it from the beginning. Unscrupulous guardians not only stole their ward’s wealth, but in many cases killed them or had them murdered. Most local government authorities in Osage County were either complicit in these murders or turned a blind eye to them. Two local physicians were even involved in the poisoning of some of the Osage. Cause of death records were falsified, and most of the deaths were not investigated.

This is a sordid tale of a horrible and little-known chapter in American history. Integral to the story is the fact that the US Bureau of Indian Affairs investigations arm came in to try to get to the bottom of the matter. It became such a big deal that the Bureau of Investigation grew in stature to become the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Killers of the Flower Moon:  The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI is incredibly well researched and is written in such a flowing way that it reads more like a novel than a history book. In case you haven’t guessed it already, I highly recommend this book.

 

Dog Songs:  Poems, by Mary Oliver

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Dog Songs: Poems, by Mary Oliver

My sister found this book at the public library and recommended it to me. If you’re a dog lover, like I am, you need to look for this little book. It’s a quick read but chock-full of delightful poems and memories of dogs and how they bless our lives.

What’s next?

I will blog about the other three books I read in August in next week’s post. No one wants to read in one sitting thousands of words about the books I read, so check out my blog next Monday to find out what else I read in August.

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read. I’ve just finished reading State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett, and I’ve started If the Creek Don’t Rise, by Leah Weiss.

If you’re a writer, I hope you have productive writing time.

Janet