Here are topics for this week's blog: the hereditary presidency; the world's 1%; Alphonse and Gaston; the "Freedom Trail;" old terrorism; Mr. Cub; veterans in the 114th Congress

Who's on first.......  To use the first line from the enduring Abbott and Costello routine, columnist Dana Milbank recounts how a surprising number of our prominent political figures have belonged to a relatively small number of families. More than you might imagine.

Who is the richest in the land? Startling statistics about the world's wealth. From a friend's email:

NO MORE NEED BE SAID. All of us, liberals or conservatives, working people  and middle class folks (where most of our parents came from!!) are victims of these hideous situation.
Overall wealth of the richest 1% will outpace that of the other 99% by next year
"The scale of global inequality is quite simply staggering," Oxfam director says
(CNN)Turns out, the rich really are getting richer. And they'll soon own more than the rest of us put together.
So says a new report, which estimates that the richest 1% will have as much wealth as the other 99% combined by next year.
"The richest 1% have seen their share of global wealth increase from 44% in 2009 to 48% in 2014," Oxfam says in a report Monday.
At that rate, the wealthiest will own more than 50% by next year, according to the report.
"Do we really want to live in a world where the 1% own more than the rest of us combined?" asked Winnie Byanyima, executive director of the international aid agency.
'Global inequality ... simply staggering'
Byanyima will co-chair the annual World Economic Forum in Davos this week.
She plans to use the platform at Davos to call for urgent action on the rising inequality.
The 80 richest people on the planet have the same wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion people, the report says.
"The scale of global inequality is quite simply staggering; and despite the issues shooting up the global agenda, the gap between the richest and the rest is widening fast," she said.
"It is time our leaders took on the powerful vested interests that stand in the way of a fairer and more prosperous world."
While 1% of the population owns 48% of the world's wealth, a majority of the remainder follows the same trend.
"Of the remaining 52% of global wealth, 46% is owned by the rest of the richest fifth of the world's population," the report says.
The remainder of the population only possesses 5.5% of global wealth.

No, please, you first. The president's State of the Union message reinforced the feeling that he and Congress are involved in an "Alphonse and Gaston" routine about how to go about formalizing the obvious: the US is leading the world's resistance to IS.

Gateway to Freedom. The Underground Railroad was the route used by many African Americans to escape slavery. Ever northward, often to Canada and, for some, then across the Atlantic. Eric Foner has written yet another book, subtitled "The hidden history of the Underground Railroad." There are, undoubtedly, still stories yet to be unearthed. In the 1980s, near my hometown in northwestern Jamestown, PA, two women bought an modest old mansion with an eye to turning it into a B&B. During renovation, a secret room above the lobby portico was discovered which confirmed long-held local rumors that the wealthy owner (a dentist) had been a link in the Underground Railway between Pittsburgh, Erie, and then across Lake Erie to freedom in Canada.  

Europe and terror. As this op ed piece by noted columnist/author Anne Applebaum indicates, terrorism is not a new phenomena to Europe. Today's characters and locations are different, but there is an element of sameness about recent events in France. She closes by noting, "In the end, terrorism works only if it creates terror. An overreaction is precisely what the jihadists want. We should deny that to them by resuming ordinary life as soon as possible."
     Further, she reminds us that, "The people who carry out these attacks are not only ideologues, they are also suicidal sociopaths. Nevertheless, the chances of being killed by a terrorist bomb remain less than the chances of being hit by a car while crossing the street."
      For the record, Ms. Applebaum experiences with European history are extensive. Her first book, Between East and West, is a travelogue, and was awarded an Adolph Bentinck Prize in 1996. Gulag: A History (2003), on the Soviet prison system, was awarded the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction writing. Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944–56, was published in 2012 by Doubleday in the USA and Allen Lane in the UK. In 2013, it was shortlisted for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award.


The passing of a gracious gentleman. While the football world dealt with the scandal (?) of deflategate, followers of America's older favorite pastime sadly noted the death of Ernie Banks, so fittingly nicknamed "Mr. Cub." A member of baseball's Hall of Fame, Banks played his entire career in a Chicago Cubs uniform. He was the first African American player to don a Cubs uniform and, like Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, and others, gracefully endured the segregation of the is his first years in MLB. 

Veterans in the 114th. From Roll Call, Jan 29th: "The new Congress has the fewest military veterans since World War II, but recent veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are on the rise. NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff talked to Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., a former Air Force colonel and pilot, and Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., a retired Marine captain."

Thank you for reading and I hope your upcoming week goes well.