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Mark R. Stoneman

@markstoneman.org

Historian, editor, and translator for hire (🇩🇪 to 🇺🇸) · this 🦣 bridges to 🦋 @markstoneman.org · my main 🦋 is @markstoneman.com · he/him · longtime resident of […] 🌉 bridged from ⁂ zirk.us/@markstoneman, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact

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Mark R. Stoneman @markstoneman.org · 20/09/2026

Roy Cohn, the gift that keeps on giving.… BTW, “Gift” in German means “poison.”

Text Shot: Above all, Trump learned one very big thing from Cohn: that the veneer of morality in the American upper class is very thin. Cohn proved conclusively that there is no limit to its tolerance for corruption. Trump got that message—and so did Jeffrey Epstein.

—Fintan O’Toole, “Devils in America,"The New York Review of Books, Oct. 8, 2026, 12.

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Mark R. Stoneman @markstoneman.org · 02/09/2026

Russian 'Democracy' youtu.be/oh1NuwWq5zU #RussiaIsATerroristState

Text Shot: In one federal TV studio, the cameras were rolling, the host was ready, but the politicians were nowhere to be found. Another Russian broadcast managed to do slightly better: one candidate actually appeared in the studio, but … he spent his alloted minute in complete silence.

–TVP World’s “Break the Fake” with Benjamin Lee, Sept. 2, 2026, https://youtu.be….

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Mark R. Stoneman @markstoneman.org · 24/08/2026

Taken with my iPhone SE 3rd gen in panorama mode on the Boulder Loop Trail in Albany, NH, on Sat. The elevation gain to the top is only about 925 feet, but that was meaningful for me. It’d been too long since I walked on granite ledges with a view. #NH Cross-posted […] [Original post on zirk.us]

Short trees and shrubs on granite ledges in milder weather than they often face. Green trees below, a mountain in the distance. Gray sky.

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Mark R. Stoneman @markstoneman.org · 18/07/2026

#HistoricalThinking #Historiography #History 🗃️

Text Shot: Thinking in terms of dichotomies – either/or, tradition/modernity, people/nation, myth/reality – is rarely productive. The most effective formulations will combine tradition with modernity, the secular with the sacred and reality with myth. The mythical worldview is inherent in every person, modern or not – we simply cannot live without it. It manifests itself especially powerfully in times of crisis and upheaval.

–Yaroslav Hrytsak, Ukraine: The Forging of a Nation, trans. Dominique Hoffman (PublicAffairs, 2024), “Interlude: A Brief History of Ukrainian Song."

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Mark R. Stoneman @markstoneman.org · 21/06/2026

"'Loaded them up like convicts': The wife of a man seized in a massive Penza enlistment raid on how he was sent to war against his will." en.zona.media/article/2026/06/19/pe… #RussoUkrainianWar #RussiaIsATerroristState #PressGangs

Text Shot: “The cops, together with the enlistment office,” are driving around towns in minibuses, “stopping everyone and taking them away,” people warn one another on social media.

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Mark R. Stoneman @markstoneman.org · 09/06/2026

What I realized about life under Russian occupation as a war crimes researcher kyivindependent.com/what-i-realized…

Text Shot: Perhaps the most psychologically devastating part is that occupation forces people to constant moral compromise.

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Mark R. Stoneman @markstoneman.org · 09/06/2026

What I realized about life under Russian occupation as a war crimes researcher kyivindependent.com/what-i-realized…

Text Shot: Under occupation, reality becomes dominated by fear. And fear erodes trust. Some people collaborate with Russian authorities and report neighbors they suspect of supporting Ukraine or having ties to Ukrainian forces. Since danger can come from anywhere, people isolate and start to suspect everyone around them. It feels like nowhere, and no one is safe.

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Mark R. Stoneman @markstoneman.org · 25/02/2026

An anti-Hitler foxtrot -- shared for no particular reason at stoneman.blog/foxtrot

Record label from an old 78 of the anti~Hitler song shared on the blog post.

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Mark R. Stoneman @markstoneman.org · 09/02/2026

Crosspost via stoneman.blog/groundhog

Text Shot: 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.

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Mark R. Stoneman @markstoneman.org · 07/12/2025

I took this photo before cleaning off the car and moving it for the snowplow last Wednesday. Crosspost from markstoneman.com/2025/12/07/i-took-…

View of snow on the ground from inside the car (driver's seat) with the door open. There is 8 to 12 inches (20 to 25 centimeters).

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Mark R. Stoneman @markstoneman.org · 09/11/2025

Thoughts on designing social web spaces by Mark Bernstein: alistapart.com/article/design-for-a… #SocialWeb

Text Shot: People 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, 2025. It is also relevant to people interested in online sociability more generally.

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Mark R. Stoneman @markstoneman.org · 01/11/2025

I forgot to mention that a short edition of Stoneman's Corner went out on Nov. 19th: Newsletter: Snapshots, Great Depression, Siege Humor, stoneman.page/2025/10/19/newsletter…

A lobster and her spouse at the No Kings protest in Conway NH.

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Mark R. Stoneman @markstoneman.org · 22/10/2025

Robin DeRosa has words for a state whose investments in higher education are the lowest per student in the country. See "I Lost My Job" (Oct. 19, 2025), robinderosa.net/higher-ed/i-lost-my… #NH #HigherEd

Text Shot: This winter, close to thirty tenured faculty at my regional public university in New Hampshire will “voluntarily” leave their positions…

I am gutted for New Hampshire, and particularly for the North Country, the rural area that my regional college serves. Many of the Pell-eligible, first-generation college students that attend my university are students who, data shows, likely would not go to college at all without our university close to home. Because we “live [tax-free] or die” here in the Granite State, students pay exorbitant costs already to access higher education. And now the budget situation means the closing of many, many majors; the reduction of choice in what careers and passions our students can pursue; the possible consolidation or closure of campuses; and the reduction of student support and library services.

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Mark R. Stoneman @markstoneman.org · 19/10/2025

Stamford, CT via bsky.app/profile/cath71813.bsky.soc…

A sign in Stamford, CT, today:
Super
Callous
Fascist
Racist
Sexist
Braggadocious

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Mark R. Stoneman @markstoneman.org · 13/10/2025

By Paul Noth @paulnoth@bsky.social

Cartoon: Doctor to patient in a hospital bed: 'You no longer have medicaid, so expect a big beautiful bill.'

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Mark R. Stoneman @markstoneman.org · 10/10/2025

This 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. 1/2 X-post via stoneman.blog/relief

Text Shot: Hayward, 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.'

Black and white photograph of three men and one woman at the front of a food bank line. The man at the very front is looking in his pocket. One arm and one shoe of a man behind the desk is visible, also a small box of some kind and some forms and ink stamps.

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