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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.

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Quoth Shower Cat:

Trump creates an impossible dilemma for those of us who look at the world in analytic terms. We can’t turn our analytic brains off, but it’s impossible to analyze something like this without creating the impression that there is actually a plan of some sort, even when we all agree that there is not.

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Recent Geopolitical Developments

On his YouTube channel, Anders Puck Nielsen offers helpful observations about recent European and American geopolitical developments. Whereas many of us were disappointed in the European Union’s collective unwillingness to seize Russian assets two weeks ago, Nielsen underlines the significance of the €90 billion loan that the EU put together for Ukraine instead. He argues that Europe has now shown itself capable of exercising real geopolitical influence in a situation ostensibly dominated by Russia and the United States.

I agree that this development is a big deal. If Europe is still unable or unwilling to throw its military might around, it has now signaled that it is not to be trifled with in its own backyard. It will help Ukraine stay in its fight against Russian subjugation, regardless of what the fickle United States does.

As for Trump’s latest undertaking against Venezuela, Nielsen questions its strategic wisdom, even if the U.S. military has demonstrated impressive tactical and operational chops. Besides covering the attack’s illegality (according to both international and U.S. law) and its doubtful domestic political support in the United States, Nielsen observes that the world is being divided between imperial spheres of influence. Countries that value their independence need to think about what measures are necessary to preserve their freedom, even as imperial overstretch will place limits on imperial aggressors.

This last insight connects directly to Nielsen’s earlier thoughts on the €90 billion for Ukraine. Europe cannot afford to be complacent. For me, the ambiguous historical example of the Holy Roman Empire comes to mind. It had defensive military heft, but it was vulnerable to internal division. It survived many centuries but proved unable to hold on when faced with the paradigm-breaking French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. In my YouTube comment, however, I was more focused on my frustration with the United States.

More people need to call out this administration on the difference between tactics/operations and strategy. This administration is headed by a man with no understanding of such things. He’s banking on U.S. military might while weakening the country’s economic and fiscal health, not to mention all the international links that made the US strong in the postwar era. It doesn’t help that few in our American billionaire class understand the relationship between U.S. soft power and social stability, on one hand, and their wealth, on the other.