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This evening Jan Böhmermann called Hegseth the “U.S. minister for fragile masculinity” on his German satirical show ZDF Magazin Royale. 👏

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This report is devastating: Hannah Allam, “Trump DoD Axed a Program Meant to Limit Civilian Casualties”, Propublica, March 10, 2026.

Our leaders are looking more and more like war criminals. So are the legislators who’ve been shirking their oversight responsibilities.

Allam writes:

Beyond the moral considerations … civilian casualties fuel militant recruiting and hinder intelligence-gathering. Retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who commanded U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, explains the risk in an equation he calls “insurgent math”: For every innocent killed, at least 10 new enemies are created.

SecDef and POTUS are too ignorant to grasp such things. They’re more concerned with cultivating their public personas as manly Hollywoodesque action heroes. That’s what they want to see in their mirrors, at any rate, but all I see are malicious buffoons.

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Donald Dump’s bloodlust will cost many more lives and weaken the country far beyond what he’s already accomplished in the past fourteen months. Whether he’ll learn anything from his mistakes is doubtful, and what his hangers-on conclude is anybody’s guess.

Vietnam should have taught us a bit of healthy humility, but instead our apparent reticence to use military force after the fall of Saigon came to be framed as a pathology, dubbed Vietnam syndrome. After the successful liberation of Kuwait in 1991, George H. W. Bush even proudly asserted, “By God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all.”

His son, George W. Bush, leveraged the return of a martial ethos to U.S. politics for even more extensive military interventions. Still grappling with the trauma of the second Bush’s wars, the United States now has to come to terms with the unhinged bellicosity of an ignorant Donald Dump and his cabinet of clowns. Dump & Co. will grow richer from the undertaking, while the rest of us bear its human and material costs.

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An anti-Hitler foxtrot -- shared for no particular reason

photo of the 78 record label

Here is Irving Berlin's "When That Man Is Dead and Gone" (1941) performed by Glenn Miller and his Orchestra with Tex Beneke and The Modernaires. The sound quality is good, especially coming from an old 78. Source: Internet Archive.

Scans of the sheet music are available in the Levy Sheet Music Collection, Johns Hopkins University.

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The latest, very short iteration of my newsletter is out: Groundhog Day.

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These 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.

In the woods on a sunny afternoon, the shadows of trees playing on the snow.

※ Crossposted to Stoneman’s Corner

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Seen in North Conway Village on Wednesday afternoon, Jan. 28

Sidewalk a couple days after the snow storm. Old train station visible. A snowy mountain and early setting sun in the background. Massive pile of snow in front of a fire department building Icicles on a local business. Long icicles, some of them bent because formed on a windy day. The snow below nearly reaches the icicles.

※ Crossposted to Stoneman’s Corner

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There 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?

Heather Cox Richardson has thoughts. Watch her comment on today’s killing of Alex Pretti on YouTube (37 min).

※ Crossposted to Stoneman’s Corner

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A new edition of Stoneman’s Corner, curated from this blog, is now available: Newsletter: Turn of the Year.

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cover bridge in snowy woods view from inside the covered bridge, showing how it was made
in the woods

Snapshots from my walk last Sunday, Jan. 18, in Albany, NH, off the Kancamagus Highway.

partially snow-covered river snow-covered trail in the woods snow-covered side path
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Ice covered river with bits of running water visible. Lots of granite causing the river to look bumpy.

Seen 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.

Crossposted to Stoneman's Corner

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Part of a white, one-story building with a laundromat inside, viewed at night with fresh snow on the ground and white holiday lights in a tree in front of the building.

Mundane 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.

Crossposted to Stoneman's Corner

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Might 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.

Crossposted to Stoneman's Corner

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Dear Media: Could we please stop calling ICE terror in U.S. cities a “federal crackdown”? That legitimizes their presence and actions.

Crossposted to Stoneman's Corner

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Before I check my social media these days, I have to steel myself against the possibility of new horrors that have not yet filtered through to me.

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The 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.