Having a wonderful time reminiscing about all my past travel (and other) adventures. Hope you’ll share them with me in my blog, “All Roads Led to Russia.”
It seems that, in addition to old Will Shakespeare, I can always count on Eleanor Roosevelt to provide just the right words of wisdom to fit any situation or circumstance.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)
And as the crisis in Ukraine drags on into yet another week of endless meetings and attempts to reach a fair and just agreement that will both end Russia’s assault and secure Ukraine’s (and Europe’s) future existence, Mrs. Roosevelt’s words make it seem so simple and obvious:
“Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.”
Now all that remains is to convince Vladimir Putin of that — and, apparently, Donald Trump as well.
As we all try to process the horror of yesterday’s Chanukah mass shooting at Bondi Beach, Australia, one story — encapsulated in this photo — stands out.
Act of Heroism – Bondi Beach, NSW, Australia – December 14, 2025
It is a picture of a bystander — a Muslim man named Ahmed al Ahmed — risking his own life to wrestle a semi-automatic weapon from a shooter attacking a group of 1,000 Jewish people celebrating the first night of the joyous Chanukah season.
Ahmed sustained accidental injuries in doing the right thing — what we would hope any able-bodied person would do. He saw evil, and he ran to stop it. The religion of the people involved did not matter to him . . . as it should not matter to anyone.
Ahmed al Ahmed is a true hero: a human being who saw other human beings in danger, and didn’t stop to categorize them. In so doing, he likely saved many lives. But he also gave us something else, something of equal importance: he gave us all a ray of hope that the decent people in this world — people of all races, faiths and ethnicities — still outnumber the evil.
So, as we mourn the loss of the 15 people who did not survive the attack, and pray for the speedy recovery of the many wounded, we should also give thanks for Ahmed and the others who helped to stop the bloodshed.
Never mind the Ides of March. These days, we must beware the so-called information on the internet!
A friend of mine re-posted something yesterday that she had read and appreciated. It was an alleged quote by the “Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer, and Academic skeptic” (whew!), Marcus Tullius Cicero. And when I read it, it spoke to me and I decided to pass it on today. But first I checked, as I always do, to be sure I was quoting it correctly.
And it turned out that Cicero didn’t say it at all.
Bust of Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
I know it’s disappointing, and incredibly difficult to believe, but we must face the fact that not everything we read on the internet is true and correct, no matter how real it may seem.
This particular writing — which sounds as though it may indeed have been issued by an ancient Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar . . . well, all those other things — actually came from the pen of 20th-century author Taylor Caldwell in her novel about Cicero, “A Pillar of Iron.” Apparently, on page 661 of the book (depending, I suppose, on whether you have the hard-cover, paperback, or digital version), Ms. Caldwell attributes the passage to a speech allegedly made by Cicero in the Roman Senate in 58 B.C., as “Recorded by Sallust.” [Samantha Putterman, Politifact, May 3, 2019.]
Taylor Caldwell (1900-85 A.D.)
Of course, I only have Ms. Putterman’s word for that. But regardless of who said it first — a 2,000-year-old Roman genius, or a prolific American novelist — the statement bears repeating. So here it is:
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. For the traitor appears not a traitor — He speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation — he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city — he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared.”
Disclaimer: Any similarity to living persons is purely coincidental. But wow! It sure sounds like someone we all know.
Well, we followed Arend, Anneesa, and the ten little Feenstras for some 36 hours, all the way from Nizhny Novgorod, Russia; through Moscow; by plane to Turkiye; a seven-hour layover in the Istanbul airport; an 11-hour flight to Detroit, Michigan, USA; a search through the Detroit airport for eldest son Ben; a five-hour drive across the border to Canada; and a warm welcome at the home of Anneesa’s parents.
Leaving Moscow
Encamped at the Istanbul Airport
Little Maddie on the long flight across the ocean
Meeting up with son Ben at Detroit
Arriving home at long last
A very happy reunion with Grandma
And that is where it ends, for now. Understandably, they were all jet-lagged, sleep-deprived, and anxious to catch up with family and friends. But it’s not like dad Arend, or trainee-photographer/moderator Cora, to let three whole days elapse between video reports; and I must admit, I miss them.
So we’ll have to let these photos of the trip and their safe arrival suffice for now, while we keep an eye out for their next installments.
Ideally, a release of political prisoners can be effected by means of a people-for-people swap, such as the historic multi-national exchange that took place with Russia in August of 2024. But that’s not always possible, when one side holds all the hostages.
So Friday’s release of 123 political prisoners by the government of Belarus was made possible by the U.S. government’s lifting of sanctions on Belarusian exports of potash — a vital component in the production of fertilizer, but also used in the making of some explosives.
Free at last!
And while no decent person wants to see a tyrant such as Belarusian presumptive president Aleksandr Lukashenko rewarded for his crimes, the lives of the hostages remains paramount, and their return is cause for celebration . . . especially in this holiday season.
Included among those freed were 2020 protest leader Maryya Kalesnikava, Nobel laureate Ales Byalyatski — both of whom have been on our list of hostages for some time, and can now be removed. A happy day indeed!
Also released were one as-yet-unnamed American and citizens of several other countries. All have safely left Belarus; 114 are in Ukraine, and the other nine are reported to have been sent to Lithuania. [RFE/RL, December 13, 2025.]
While we celebrate their release, we continue to maintain the vigil on behalf of the thousands remaining in prisons in Russia, Belarus, Georgia, China, Azerbaijan, and anywhere else that political hostages are being held.
And once more, here are the names of those known to me:
*. *. *
Europeans Under Threat:
The people of NATO and EU member states
Prisoners of War:
The 19,500 Kidnapped Ukrainian Children The People of Ukraine
Immigrant Detainees in Russia:
Migrants from the Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan
Endangered Exiles:
Mikita Losik Yulia Navalnaya Countless Journalists and Other Dissidents
Ales Bialiatski Andrei Chapiuk Marya Kalesnikava Uladzimir Labkovich Andrzej Poczobut Marfa Rabkova Valiantsin Stafanovic Yuras Zyankovich
In Georgia:
Mzia Amaglobeli
In China:
Chenyue Mao (American)
In Russia:The “Crimea 8”: — Oleg Antipov — Artyom Azatyan — Georgy Azatyan — Aleksandr Bylin — Roman Solomko — Artur Terchanyan — Dmitry Tyazhelykh — Vladimir Zloba
David Barnes (American) Gordon Black (American) Antonina Favorskaya Konstantin Gabov Robert Gilman (American) Stephen James Hubbard (American) Sergey Karelin Timur Kishukov Vadim Kobzev Darya Kozyreva Artyom Kriger Michael Travis Leake (American) Aleksei Liptser Grigory Melkonyants Nika Novak Leonid Pshenychnov (in Russian-occupied Crimea) Nadezhda Rossinskaya (a.k.a. Nadin Geisler) Sofiane Sehili (French) Igor Sergunin Dmitry Shatresov Robert Shonov Grigory Skvortsov Eugene Spector (American) Laurent Vinatier Robert Romanov Woodland (American)
*. *. *
May the coming New Year bring all of you, and more, safely home.
This song — “Carefully Taught” — needs no explanation. Here it is, years ahead of its time, from the 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical classic:
“You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear, You’ve got to be taught from year to year, It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear, You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught to be afraid Of people whose eyes are oddly made, And people whose skin is a different shade, You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late, Before you are six or seven or eight, To hate all the people your relatives hate, You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be carefully taught.”
– Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, “South Pacific”
It’s been going on for some time now: the Kremlin’s blocking of social media and international apps including WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, X, Signal, Viber, Snapchat, and now also Apple’s FaceTime video service.
In their place, the Russian government has created an all-powerful new app called Max, developed by the state-run social media company formerly known as VKontakte (now merely called VK), making it much easier for officials to monitor communications.
“The better to hear you with, my dear.”
Russia’s state services portal, Gosuslugi (literally, “State Services”), serves as the country’s primary digital gateway between the state and its people. It is used for tax returns, medical services, legal documentation, and — in accordance with recently-enacted legislation — includes the delivery of electronic draft notices to military enlistment offices. [Current time and RFE/RL’s Russian Service, December 10, 2025.]
And now Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko has advised that the government has instituted a ban on international incoming calls made without the consent of the receiver, allegedly aimed at “protecting citizens from phone and Internet fraud.” The new measures will include mandatory labeling of all international calls, issuance of special “children’s SIM cards,” and stricter limits on issuance of mass SIM cards. [Id.]
Further, the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media has said that it is gradually phasing out SMS-based logins to Gosuslugi on mobile devices. Access to Gosuslugi via smartphone will hereafter be possible only through Max. [Id.]
. . . and listening!
When I made my first trip to the Soviet Union in 1988 with an American tour group, I decided to make one phone call home to the U.S., just to let my family know I was alive and well. Communications were difficult in those days; few people even had their own home phones, as the waiting list was years long. But the hotel was finally able to put the call through for me — at a cost of $50! — and I knew, or at least assumed, that it was being monitored.
The advent of the cell phone changed all of that, and today — at least in the cities — nearly everyone walks around with a phone in hand. The internet has also offered Russian citizens greater access to information, as well as the ability to keep in touch with friends and relatives abroad.
But that is changing. Throughout the world, individual privacy has been chipped away by the very technology on which we have come to depend. And in Russia, that is being taken to an extreme not seen since the 1980s . . . all in the name of “protection.”
In Putin’s world, everything old is becoming new again. But today’s young adults are better informed than their parents and grandparents were. They have known freedom; in fact, an entire generation has never lived under communism. So the question is: How much of this Soviet-style repression will they accept before they rebel?
Anti-Putin Demonstration in Moscow (The three pictures read “Enemy of the People”) (The red flags at top right say “The Left Front”)
In Vladimir Putin’s Russia — as in the days of the Soviet Union — any individuals, groups and organizations daring to express opposition to the official line are labeled as “extremists,” “foreign agents,” “undesirable organizations,” or simply as “scum” and “traitors.” They are then arrested, charged with completely made-up offenses, and invariably convicted and imprisoned.
Donald Trump calls his opponents “haters and losers,” “thugs,” “sick people,” “the enemy from within,” “seditionists,” and . . . wait for it . . . “scum” and “vermin.”
“I want to lead!” “Nyet! I want to lead!”
Now, according to a leaked memo from the U.S. Attorney General’s office, Pam Bondi has directed the Justice Department and the FBI to compile a list of groups that may be labeled “domestic terrorism” organizations.
The memo, obtained by journalist Ken Klippenstein, is said to instruct that the list be based on political views related to immigration, gender, and U.S. policy. It identifies targets as “entities expressing ‘opposition to law and immigration enforcement,’ support for ‘mass migration and open borders,’ ‘radical gender ideology,’ or views described as anti-American, anti-capitalist or anti-Christian, as well as ‘hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality.’” [Democracy Now!, December 8, 2025.]
The memo also instructs the agencies to refer suspected cases to the Joint Terrorism Task Forces for investigation, and orders the FBI to expand its tipline and create a cash reward system for informants. [Id.]
Welcome to Donald Trump’s lily-white, racist, homophobic, male-dominated, pseudo-Christian Amerika, folks.
On November 5th of this year, Vladimir Putin quietly signed into law Decree No. 821: “Executive Order On the Temporary Procedure for Granting Citizenship of the Russian Federation and Issuing Residence Permits in the Russian Federation,” which contained a provision that “certain categories of capable men aged 18 to 65” must now be subject to military service in order to apply for permanent residency or citizenship in Russia.
And on November 16th, Arend Feenstra — obviously concerned for himself and his 16-year-old son Wesley — appeared in a chat on YouTube with a Russian immigration expert to discuss the meaning of the new edict.
Discussing Decree No. 821 – November 16, 2025
The Feenstras, as we know, have built a farm in Nizhny Novgorod and settled into life in Russia over the past two years. In 2024, they were granted temporary residency visas — the first step toward permanent residency, for which they will become eligible in 2027 . . . by which time young Wesley will be 18 years of age.
Although Arend, in the November broadcast, tried to put the best face on the issue, he was obviously and understandably concerned. But the Kremlin has been uncharacteristically silent about the new decree, even as the war in Ukraine — still officially known as the “special military operation” — rages on.
Fast forward just three weeks, when Arend Feenstra makes the surprise announcement that the entire family — all ten of them — will be leaving on Tuesday, December 9th, for an indefinite period of at least a couple of months, on a much-needed vacation in their home country of Canada, with a planned side trip to Florida in the U.S.
While repeating several times that they would be “100% for sure” returning to their farm in Russia, Arend led us on a brief tour of the farm they have built with their own hands and would now be leaving in the care of their tenant farmers, the Pulley family from Australia, who themselves appeared on the scene rather suddenly and mysteriously just a few weeks ago.
Justin Pulley’s Tractor-Driving Lesson
As everyone hastily packed for the long journey, they dutifully filmed their progress, and repeatedly asked the youngest children if they were excited about the vacation . . . while Justin Pulley was being given a last-minute lesson in driving the farm tractor. And I had to wonder how, if this trip had been so well-planned, they had let that little detail slide until the last moment.
At last, Tuesday arrived and they were off. We followed them on the train from Nizhny Novgorod to Moscow, by Metro from the train station to the airport, and through the surprisingly easy check-in process. But at the train station while still in Nizhny Novgorod, Arend Feenstra let his guard down for just a moment, admitting that — though he is not generally a sentimental guy — he was indeed feeling emotional about leaving their Russian home, because “we’re going to be gone for a while.”
Leaving Nizhny Novgorod
He did not sound, or look, like a man going on a vacation.
In my December 8th report, I had voiced some concerns about the entire scenario: leaving their beloved, hard-earned farm in the hands of inexperienced strangers for so long; spending anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000 — even though allegedly donated by family and “friends” — just for air fare; and the unexplained 2,500-mile detour to Florida.
And today I saw this headline:
“Putin Decree Forces Foreigners Seeking Russian Residency To Sign Army Contracts”
The article speaks of “a little-publicized decree [issued] last month that requires many foreign men who seek permanent residency or citizenship to sign a contract with the military in the midst of Moscow’s war against Ukraine . . .” [Svetlana Osipova, et al., RFE/RL, December 12, 2025.]
The report continues:
“State-run and privately owned Russian media outlets have made almost no mention of the requirement, which is highly unusual in international practice, since Putin signed Decree No. 821 on November 5.
“But the new measure is already pushing migrants who have built their lives in Russia to choose between conscription and leaving the country . . .” [Id.]
It also told of one Azerbaijani citizen, also now a farmer in Nizhny Novgorod, who only learned of the new requirement when he recently visited a Federal Migration Service office to ask what documents he needed to apply for permanent residency. He and his Russian wife now plan to leave the country, saying, “We don’t know what to do — we are pawns in this meat grinder.” [Id.]
But Arend Feenstra knew about Decree No. 821 almost immediately following its issuance. And barely a month later, he and his entire family are on their way back to Canada for a lengthy “vacation.”
Leaving Moscow
There are such things as coincidences, of course — as when two women show up at a party wearing identical outfits, or co-workers buy each other the same Secret Santa gift. But some apparent coincidences stretch credulity to the breaking point . . . most especially when they involve politics or business.
So I can only reiterate my thoughts of a few days ago, when I mentioned the possibility that the Feenstras might be voluntarily moving back home to the West; or that, if they do intend to return to Russia, they may find themselves no longer welcome there, their property confiscated, and their lives totally upended.
On the other hand, this whole trip might just be another chapter in the ongoing use by the Putin regime of the Feenstra family as propaganda tools to attract conservative, productive immigrants. I suppose we’ll have to wait for their next videos to see what happens.
In 1998, Margaret Atwood — renowned author of “The Handmaid’s Tale” and a multitude of other literary gems — wrote a psychological thriller titled “Surfacing,” in which she offered this concise observation on some of mankind’s shortcomings:
“Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results.“ – Margaret Atwood, “Surfacing”
Margaret Atwood
And that sentence immediately brought to mind an article in yesterday’s news about the latest diplomatic action taken by Marco Rubio, who currently wears three hats as Secretary of State, acting National Security Adviser, and acting Archivist for the U.S. government. He is, to say the least, a busy man.
But somehow he manages to find time to attend to those little details that, if overlooked, would be certain to create havoc sufficient to cause the collapse of the entire nation. Today’s case in point: the standard font for all official Department of State documents.
You see, this vital issue — which has taken precedence over finding a solution to the war in Ukraine, maintaining the tenuous Gaza peace, analyzing Russia’s threats against Europe, and countering China’s AI dominance — obviously has the power to destroy us all because it involves the issue of DEIA, which is DEI with the addition of Accessibility.
It seems that Times New Roman has been the choice of fonts for the U.S. government since 2004, which was perfectly adequate when official documents were memorialized on something called paper. But at some point during the Biden administration, a sharp-eyed individual recognized that Times New Roman was not as easily readable on computer screens. So a new, digital-friendly font called Calibri was devised, eliminating the unnecessary finishing strokes on the Times New Roman letters and making it more accessible to people with disabilities such as impaired vision, dyslexia, or perhaps those on the autism spectrum.
Thus — in the minds of the anti-woke, anti-DEIA, anti-milk-of-human-kindness members of the Trump administration — this became an Accessibility issue. And heaven forbid, we should ever do anything to make life a little easier for people whose disabilities already weigh on them. Because helping people would be the next thing to socialism, which is just a short step away from communism. Or some such crap.
And besides, the change to Calibri was a Biden administration action, which automatically classifies it as despicable, illegal, and quite possibly seditious . . . and which may provide an excuse for Pam Bondi to start a whole new investigation.
So, in order to keep the government from experiencing a total meltdown, the very busy Marco Rubio has directed U.S. diplomats around the world to switch from the offending Calibri back to Times New Roman 14-point font in all official documents, with the State Department issuing the following explanatory statement:
“Whether for internal memoranda, papers prepared for principals, or documents shared externally, consistent formatting strengthens credibility and supports a unified Department identity.” [Rachel Treisman, NPR, December 11, 2025.]
Your tax dollars at work!
I wonder whether Margaret Atwood has ever contemplated the effects of a combination of stupidity and evil. If not, she has plenty of material now.
The Blog About Everything … and Sometimes Nothing 