This short email begins with a thought I had in late October 2024. The few words and photos I've posted since my previous newsletter follow.
\nIt's one thing to criticize presentist thinking and optimistic notions of human progress that don't comport with professional historiography. It's quite another to be punched in the face repeatedly by the reality of historical contingency in our national experience these past few decades.
\nThese days, I often have no words, which for me is saying something. Perhaps I'm still processing the American insanity that makes every day feel like I'm stuck in a time loop à la Harold Ramis's 1993 film \"Groundhog Day.\" Or maybe I'm growing numb and dumb. In any case, I took this photo in North Conway on the actual Groundhog Day last week with nary a rodent in sight.
\n![\"In](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2026/img-1290.jpg\")
\nThere are federal agents and administration officials who will have to face murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and other serious charges after the rule of law is reestablished in this land. But how to end the current terror?
\nHeather Cox Richardson has thoughts. Watch her comment on today's killing of Alex Pretti on YouTube (37 min).
\nSeen in North Conway Village on Wednesday afternoon, Jan 28
\n![\"Sidewalk](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2026/img-1274.jpg\")
\n![\"Massive](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2026/img-1275.jpg\")
\n![\"Icicles](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2026/img-1278.jpg\")
\n![\"Long](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2026/img-1272.jpg\")
\nSeasonal affective disorder, your days are numbered. The winter solstice is only two days away. 😎
\n![\"Part](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2026/laundromat.jpg\")
\n\nMundane tasks can also entail bits of magic. Here's the laundromat I use when our washing machine is out of commission. North Conway, NH, Jan. 17, 2026.
\nPosted on Jan. 1, 2026.
\n![\"Small](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2026/de21454615.jpg\")
\nEcho Lake, North Conway, NH, on Dec. 28, 2025.
\nPosted on Jan. 23, 2026.
\n![\"Ice](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2026/peabody-river.jpg\")
\nSeen on the afternoon of Jan. 1, 2026. Peabody River in Gorham, NH. It was only 2:45 in the afternoon, but the sun was starting to disappear behind the mountain.
\nFor six more wintry images, see my post from Jan. 23, 2026.
\nPeople thinking about how to create web spaces for more productive and meaningful interactions might profit from a recent post by Mark Bernstein that draws inspiration from interwar Vienna’s coffee houses. See \"Design for Amiability: Lessons from Vienna,\" A List Apart, Oct. 15. It is also relevant to people interested in online sociability more generally.
\nI’ve added Omar El Akkad’s One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (Penguin) to my list of books for the current moment. In one sense it’s a fairly short screed about the hypocrisy of Western values. From that point of view, this 2025 winner of the National Book Award had little new to tell me. Moreover, its dark context, the genocide in Gaza and the related suppression of free speech in the United States, led me to put it down several times in recent months. Nonetheless, its unusual and compelling style kept me coming back. On top of that, I was drawn to how he structures his reflections around elements of his own transnational life.
\nAt times, the argument feels bothsidesist, but I don’t think it’s that easy. Besides, why doesn’t Western liberalism work harder to offer a positive vision that lives up to liberal values instead of relying on the adage that the other side is a whole lot worse. It is, but this rhetorical strategy clearly hasn’t worked, and it is irrelevant when it comes to the lives that Netanyahu has extinguished using US weapons. Despite my occasional ambivalence, this little book offers anyone who chooses to listen plenty to think about. We can’t overcome the current disorder without doing better in word and deed.
\nI feel sick every time I hear the U.S. president conflating Ukraine’s gradual loss of land with its overall strategic position. Is his team really so ignorant? Or is this yet another instance of their favoring the interests and nihilism of the few over the interests and values of the many?
\nFinished reading Andrey Kurkov’s Diary of an Invasion (Mountain Leopard Press, 2022) and Our Daily War (Open Borders Press, 2024). Lots of good observations and vignettes about life in Ukraine during war, but also before.
\nKyiv Independent video: One night with a Kyiv family amid Russia’s mass attack (29 min)
\nThe U.S. federal government is deliberately terrorizing American cities and is happy to sanction unnecessary and therefore illegal deadly force. The agents might be poorly trained; their leadership and culture is clearly rotten.
\nDear Media: Could we please stop calling ICE terror in U.S. cities a “federal crackdown”? That legitimizes their presence and actions.
\nMight Europe’s clear “No” to Trump’s Greenland ambitions become the check on his rogue imperial presidency that so many U.S. institutions have been unable to manifest? Probably not, but I sure hope they stand their ground. Meanwhile, Mark Carney’s inspiring speech in Davos about the Canadian response to Trump’s weaponization of global economic integration offers a solid model for states that wish to meet the Trumpian threat head on.
\n
\n\t\tPosted Oct 7, 2025 ∞ \n\t
![\"Bright](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2025/8aad16f7a4.jpg\")
![\"Yellow](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2025/766a698940.jpg\")
\n\t\t\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tSeen in my neighborhood this morning. \n\t\t\t
\n\t\n\t\t\tPosted Oct 18, 2025 ∞ \n\t\t
\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\tJust saw a Maine lobster at the protest—along with many dogs, two dinosaurs, and many hundreds of humans of all ages, from babies to humans powering their own rollators. There is a group all in yellow, too. \n\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\tPosted Oct 18, 2025 ∞ \n\t\t
\n\t\t![\"View](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2025/img-1144.jpg\")
![\"Protestors](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2025/img-1151.jpg\")
\n\t\t\t![\"A](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2025/img-1140.jpg\")
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tI'm guessing some 500 people were there, but it could have been more. \n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\n\t \n\t\t\tPosted Oct 18, 2025 ∞ \n\t\t \n\t\t\t\tYou get repeated turnouts like this in rural New Hampshire, and you know authoritarianism’s foundations are wobbly. \n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t
\n\t\tPosted Oct 9, 2025 ∞ \n\t
\n\t\n\t\t\t\tHayward, California [1940]. Youth on Relief. Looking in his pocket for his surplus commodities card. 'Not having a job is bad enough, but you keep goin' down and purty soon you're here and the spirit is gone. I turn my face when somebody I know real well comes along the sidewalk. It takes the spirit when you're in here and then you haven't anything left.' \n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t
![\"Black](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2025/youth-on-relief.jpg\")
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\n\t\t\t\tThis image stems from a federal food aid program during the Great Depression. For me, the quoted recipient of aid represents a familiar story about pride, dignity, shame, and fear that the self-righteous who reject the provision of such aid fail to grasp. \n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tPhoto and caption by Rondal Partridge for the National Youth Administration, April 17, 1940, from the series Study of Youth Photographs, Record Group 119: Records of the National Youth Administration, National Archives Catalog, NAID: 532121. \n\t\t\t
\n\t\n\t\tPosted Oct 13, 1993 ∞ \n\t
\n\t![\"Black-and-white](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2025/a8e4509565.jpg\")
\n\t\t\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\"Sarajevo siege humour, winter of 1992-1993: creamy leather gun holster displayed as a hot fashion item in the window of an erstwhile shoe shop.\" \n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tPhoto and caption by Christian Maréchal, 1993, Wikimedia Commons. License: CC BY 3.0. \n\t\t\t
\n\tTopics in this newsletter:
\n![\"Postcard](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2025/bessa-to-frances-photo-m.jpg\")
\nThe modern-day archival title of this old postcard is a gender-neutral \"Person in top hat and pipe\", although the person pictured appears to be a woman. That there is something gender-bending or gender-ambiguous about it is confirmed by the message on the back, presumably from the person photographed, who was traveling in Ohio.
\n\n\nSept. 16, 1907
\nDear Frances–
\nI just couldn't help it, and I knew you would want one, even tho you do have to hide it. I've had some good ones taken and will send you one as soon as they are finished. I've had a lovely time in Galion, but I leave in the morning for Mt. Vernon for a ten day visit then to Columbus and Zanesville for a few days. Dea had me read your letters. I'm glad you are feeling so fine. Yours lovingly Bessa
\n
The condition of the postcard is immaculate because it was not sent in the clear as a postcard but instead placed in an envelope. Note how the handwritten text filled the entire back of the card, covering both the message half and the address half.
\nThe reasons for Bessa's apparently subversive appearance are unclear, but three possibilities come to mind. She could have been a dress reformer, or maybe an entertainer, or simply someone for whom this manner of dress aligned most closely with her sense of self. Regardless, the look on her face and the tone of her text makes me think she she would have been a lovely person to know.
\n![\"hand-written](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2025/bessa-to-frances-text.jpg\")
Source of images: Warren and Katherine Head postcard collection, The Newberry Digital Collections, NL12WVEL.
\nHere are quotes and a cartoon from the past that speak to our present.
\n\"It’s a pity how easily people can be fooled.\"
\n– Spencer Tracy's character in \"Keeper of the Flame\" (1942)
\n\"Congress was once the proud equal of the executive and judicial branches of our government. Now it stands drained of both power and respect, partly through abdication of its responsibilities and partly through the eager gathering of power by a burgeoning presidency. That phenomenon started with Franklin Roosevelt, and every President since has been unable to resist taking more decision-making responsibility on himself. The power to make war and to decide how our money is spent is no longer the unquestioned province of Congress …\"
\n– \"Fresh Blood for a Sick Congress,\" Life, November 17, 1972, p. 42.
\n\"Placing will above reason; the ideal over reality; appealing, unremittingly, to totem and taboo; elevating tribal fetishes; subjugating and destroying the common sense that grows out of human experience; of an oceanic boundlessness, Naziism … is the enemy of whatever is sunny, reasonable, pragmatic, common-sense, freedom-loving, life-affirming, form-seeking, and conscious of tradition.\"
\n– Dorothy Thompson, Let the Record Speak (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1939), p. 3.
\n![\"Cartoon](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2025/quiet-life-with-nazis.jpg\")
A cartoon urging Americans out of their complacency. You may snooze, is the message, but that doesn't mean the fascist predator will leave you alone. The down payment for peace and quiet for the man here is his leg, assuming the hungry animal stops there.
\nSource: Ken Low for Ken, Nov. 3, 1938, via @Infrogmation@mastodon.online
\n![\"some](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2025/cfc6334e3d-m.jpg\")
\nSnapshot of the foliage at sunset in our condo's parking lot, Sept. 29, 2025.
\n![\"close-up](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2025/3f79cfec2f.jpg\")
\nWild asters seen on my walk in North Conway today
\n“The response to truth is often even more truth; that is why regimes fear even small bits of it.”\n– Victoria Amelina
\n“Andrea: Unhappy the land that has no heroes!… Galileo: No. Unhappy the land where heroes are needed.”\n– Bertolt Brecht, “Life of Galileo,” in Collected Plays, trans. John Willet (Bloomsbury, 1995), scene 13
\nI’m living in New Hampshire now because of eldercare responsibilities. Here are a few posts that marked the transition.
\nFor a little personal historical context, here are a couple pictures of the house where I grew up in the 1970s, a property my parents gave up in 2013: The Old House and Barn, July 15, 2022.
\nThe hashtags at the end of these and other posts are how I indicate blog categories nowadays. See the archive page for more.
\nI didn’t blog a lot when I moved up here, but I used Twitter until late 2022, when I posted Bye Bye Birdie, Dec. 4, 2022. Then came other platforms. If you’re interested in social media that isn’t siloed and doesn’t use problematic algorithms, I’ve begun a list of social media and blogging resources that include my own posts. There’s also a post about my change in blogging platforms.
\nDuring and in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. election season, I found myself posting photos, drawings, and posters from the past, frequently under the rubric #PastAndPresent, but also #Migration, #GenderAndSexuality, and #BlackHistory, for example. Another category I favor is #Cartoons. Below is an example. See Knock-Out Blow to the Russian Bear: Postcard from 1904–05 for details.
\n![\"Man](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2025/russian-bear-russo-japanese-war.jpg\")
\nI linked history to politics in another way with We Need a New Political Translation Dictionary (English–English), Nov. 25. 2024. If I had extra bandwidth for politics, that would be worth pursuing further.
\nOf course, I also expressed rage a couple times, or used offensive language, but I tried to be constructive when I could: Eighteen Points toward Strength and Solidarity in a Time of Fear and Despair, Feb. 2, 2025.
\nA big category for our times is #InformationDisorder. I don’t write about it that much, but I’ve quoted good authors on the subject. In fact, I’m maintaining a short list of books that I’ve found useful for understanding the current moment, and information disorder features heavily.
\nBy the way, there are important links between contemporary information disorder and competing misshapen images of how history works. See Timothy Snyder and the Existential Significance of History, Mar. 29, 2025.
\nTo round out this first newsletter, let me highlight a recent post that brings together memory and old notes I found from my grandmother.
\nAug. 30, 2025
\nWhile sorting through a jumble of things my mother has been saving, I ran across a box of index cards (3" x 5") and small pieces of notepaper that her mother had used for cookie recipes in her later years. I had seen these in her kitchen back in the day, but I took a fresh look and found that she had also used the box for record-keeping.
\nA card with the heading “Total cookies by year” captures her output between 1977 and 1985. A second card has a line drawn down the middle with one entry (top-left) for her Christmas cookie ingredient costs in 1981 and another (top-right) for her mince pie filling costs the same year. The way she formatted this data suggests she had intended to repeat these calculations in subsequent years.
\n\n![\"Index](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2025/cookies-totals.jpg\")
\nI took the following picture yesterday in Wonalancet, NH, from the small cemetery where my grandmother lies.
\n![\"Blue](\"https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2025/wonalancet-church.jpg\")
![Wikimedia Commons](\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sarajevo_Siege_ShoeShop_GunHolster.jpg\"){kind=link}