Randall Stephens
American historian, religion, environment, pop culture, the South. Author: The Devil's Music (Harvard, 2018). Prof of Am & Brit Studies, Univ of Oslo. Fulbright alumnus. t.co/oGDJUwAhXL
- “…Afghanistan has a Level 4 security advisory. South Africa, from which we recently received refugees…has a Level 2 advisory, which is on par with Sweden & Italy. It calls into question, what are the benchmarks against which Afghanistan is being assessed in this regard.” www.npr.org/2025/05/14/n...
- “The remarkable find was made by a pair of Magna Carta sleuth-scholars from Britain. The document, on sheepskin parchment, was purchased by Harvard in the aftermath of World War II from a London bookdealer in 1946 for $27.50 — or about $462 in today’s dollars.” www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...
- The friendly neighborhood crow
- We just like each other. He likes that we’re giving him all sorts of deals, and I like the bribes.
- "Justin Kaplan’s penetrating 1966 biography...came in at a brisk 424 pages. Ron Powers’s more recent biography...wrapped up the life in 722 pages. At the rate we are heading, Twain’s next overkill biographer will deliver a page for every day he was on the planet." www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/b...
- Paul Conrad on the political fallout from Goldwater's opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Newark Star-Ledger, 7/10/1964.
- Played bass for Foghat
- Idea for a John Quincy Adams t-shirt. Illustration by John Milt Morris, 1964.
- Lou Grant on Vietnam and the domino theory, Newark Star-Ledger, 2/16/1964.
- LD Warren on the memory of Munich during the Cold War, May 1954.
- A fiery sunset over Rosenholm
- Getting the sleepys. #FunWithPhotoshop
- A pair of roller skaters, Chicago, 1885.
- Shackled with the burdens of grading season
- “…the Episcopal Church…is terminating its partnership with the government to resettle refugees, citing moral opposition to resettling white Afrikaners from South Africa who have been classified as refugees by President Trump's administration.” www.npr.org/2025/05/12/g...
- You will look like a real Dapper Dan in your casket
- What public transportation in the US could've been.
- Reposted by Randall Stephens[Not loaded yet]
- "Let's not forget to ask about the suitcases filled with cash bribes."
- The Republic of Mattel will be allying with the Kingdom of Fisher-Price to form the Toys Я Us Pact. www.bbc.com/news/videos/...
- Daniel K. Wallingford, A New Yorker's Idea of the United States of America, 1935.
- The rise of organized labor in the US, 1900-1950. From Leland D. Baldwin, Recent American History (1954).
- Japanese archipelago superimposed on the eastern US, 1940s.
- Grover Page on the GOP investing in McCarthy’s anti-communist demagoguery, Louisville Courier-Journal, 4/3/1950.
- It’s only a little over 44 hours long
- Grover Page on the authoritarianism of the Second Red Scare, Louisville Courier-Journal, 3/30/1950.
- Trump in 13th-century BC Troy: "I would never be one to turn down that kind of offer. I could be a stupid person and say we don't want a free, big, beautiful horse..."
- “…uncertainty around these policies has started to have an impact. Surveys show that consumers have become increasingly downbeat about the economic outlook & that businesses are essentially frozen in place until there is more clarity about what Mr. Trump has planned.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/b...
- Reposted by Randall Stephens[Not loaded yet]
- How will Trump be able to top this 2017 cartoon villain photo op in Saudi Arabia?
- "Say, what ever happened to freedom from fear?" Herblock on the climate of fear and suppression during the second red scare, Washington Post, August 1951.
- Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright in 1966: "To criticize one's country is to do it a service and pay it a compliment. It is a service because it may spur the country to do better than it is doing; it is a compliment because it evidences a belief that the country can do better than it is doing."
- Herblock on the new attention to science and math in the wake of Sputnik, November 1957. My dad got his MA in math paid, and a good stipend as well, at U Arkansas in the 60s under the National Defense Education Act.
- Ross Lewis on Sputnik and American consumerism, October 1957.
- "Taking a public stance in a climate of growing repression is not easy, faculty say. In Florida, where Ono is headed, the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, was an early champion of the battle against diversity initiatives..." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
- Gib Crockett on McCarthy's farcical hunt for reds in the State Department, Evening Star, 3/6/1950.
- Clay Risen on Senator McCarthy: “What drove reporters' interest in this man McCarthy? He was probably lying, they all knew….there was a train-wreck quality to the senator that turned the press corps into rubber-neckers…” Grover Page editorial cartoon on McCarthy seeking publicity, 1950.
- Happy Mother’s Day from the Bates Motel
- Today it was a large bottle, pitcher, and mugs.
- Seismic zones in the southeast and Great Plains
- “…several news outlets have now reported that the DOGE team has been combining various federal databases in an effort to build up a tool to track and arrest immigrants.” one.npr.org/i/nx-s1-5389...
- “Indeed Fiona Hill, the policy analyst and adviser to the UK government on its imminent strategic defence review, argues the third world war has already started, if only we would recognise it.” www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...
- He left a life of luxury for the biggest grift and a different life of luxury
- A spectacular Norwegian forest cat in the neighborhood. I like to think his name is Torbjørn.
- Regional Distribution of Catholics, 1910 and 2010
- Countdown to Trump going full Henry VIII—dissolution of the monasteries, confiscation of church property, declaring himself Supreme Head of the Church of America...
- Grover Page on the looming atomic apocalypse, Louisville Courier-Journal, 4/2/1954.
- May the fErSS be with you
- "I hold here in my hand." John Fischetti's 1954 cartoon, quoting McCarthy's Wheeling, WV speech about communists in the State Dept: "I hold here in my hand a list of 205 persons who are known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party..." McCarthy's number changed quite a bit.
- John Fischetti on Senator McCarthy as an anti-communist, anti-democratic pied piper, June 1954.
- US Supreme Court Justice Frank Murphy, Bridges v. Wixon,1945, on due process for non citizens: “Seldom if ever in the history of this nation has there been such a concentrated & relentless crusade to deport an individual because he dared to exercise the freedom that belongs to him as a human being…”
