And now for something completely silly

 History buffs will recall that "He kept us out of war" was the winning slogan in the 1916 presidential election.  He -- Woodrow Wilson, the Virginian "too proud to fight" -- was inaugurated on March 4, 1917, and on April 6 Congress declared war on the German Empire.  Something about a dumb telegram from the German foreign office to the government of Mexico...anyhow, away we went.  Mobs attacked German-owned businesses, Schneiders and Schmidts changed their names to Snyder and Smith, and the ugly spirit of American jingoism was off the chain.  Sauerkraut became Victory Cabbage.  Dachshunds were actually killed.  And the madness was by no means confined to the proletariat.

Symphony orchestras cancelled the music of Bach and Brahms (Beethoven was spared on the narrow basis of his Dutch grandfather).  Karl Muck, the German-born, Swiss-citizenship-holding music director of the Boston Symphony, was imprisoned as an enemy alien until 1919 and then deported.  It was not our finest moment and now it's back.

Today the Cardiff Philharmonic announced that it will not play the 1812 Overture at its March 18 concert because they feel it would be "inappropriate at this time."  The replacement program is the Dvorak Eighth, the Enigma Variations and some movie music by John Williams.  This follows the disappearance of Valery Gergiev, Anna Netrebko and others from various venues because that will send a message Putin can't ignore, I suppose.    

In relatively sophisticated New York City Russian restaurants are losing customers and getting threats, as if they weren't owned by people who left Russia (and in some cases Ukraine) decades ago.  Suddenly blinis are unpatriotic.  And this is Manhattan -- imagine what's going on with the people in Brighton Beach ("Little Odessa") as the Russian army advances on big Odessa.  Ask Asians how idiots responded to Trump calling covid "kung flu" and "China virus." 

Damien Hirst opened yet another show of pickled animals at Gagosian Britannia Street gallery and Jonathan Jones didn't like it this time.  At the end of his one-star review the most damning thing he could say was, "This is art for the penthouses of oligarchs who look out of their windows and ask who really cares about all those pieces of meat walking about down there."  Ouch.

Call me when the non-Russian oligarchs start throwing their Faberge eggs out the penthouse windows.