Mark Blondin

Another sneak release of a government reporting on itself. The UK's Covid failure in nursing homes. The numbers vary a bit, but between a third and over half of all Covid deaths occurred in care facilities because Covid attacked the elderly and at-risk. #Covid_19 www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Supplemental Security Income is designed to prevent poor Americans from falling into destitution—but the program disqualifies recipients for saving even a dollar more than $2,000. trib.al/pwzHZBq

This Is the U.S. Government’s Most Maddening Poverty Trap newrepublic.com/article/2158... via @newrepublic.com

Thirty years ago today we camped at the JFK Library. My journal: “Microsoft answered our e-mail. She agreed to send software and suggested that “other creative possibilities existed.” “I am facing the Boston skyline, the library is on my right...” Read the story at: longreads.com/2026/09/22/f...

During Covid, MSM ran sustained, effusive coverage “one of the best health outcomes in the world.” On March 9, 2026, New Zealand's Royal Commission undermined it all, "on proportionality, on discriminated populations, on violation of rights..." materialwitness.markblondin.com/p/the-model-...

Liberals’ DEI could hardly move the furniture, let alone change anything. Michigan spent $250 million over nine years on higher ed’s best-funded DEI program. Black enrollment rose about one point. A Left critique: materialwitness.markblondin.com/p/a-fraud-th...

30yrs ago today, in Portland, ME, we couldn’t get online. From my journal: “We tried at YMCA to connect our laptop. Pierre tried everything to find us a phone line that worked. As we left, he said, "make sure we get him a copy of the book we write.” I owe Pierre a book. longreads.com/2026/09/22/f...

My first article in @newrepublic.com: SSI’s $2,000 savings limit has been frozen since 1989. A bipartisan bill to raise it to $10,000 hasn’t had a hearing. I asked all 18 Senate sponsors why. Three replied. newrepublic.com/article/2158...

1440 linked our Longreads essay today and ran a Justin Hall note under it. In 1996 we drove a motorhome around the country with three kids, uploading the write-ups from borrowed phone lines. longreads.com/2026/09/22/f... It's web history now. join1440.com/newsletter/1...

Thirty years ago tonight, a supermarket parking lot in Bennington, Vermont. Day six. From my journal: “today telneted to freeway and got the message from Joyce that mail sent to the MCImail account was returned.” longreads.com/2026/09/22/f...

Harper's Bazar. The new "Camelot" couple.

Jason Kottke linked our Longreads essay yesterday — nine months, 25,000 miles, blogged from a motorhome over a dial-up modem in 1996. kottke.org, founded 1998, pointing at the people who were doing it in 1996. longreads.com/2026/09/22/f...

Thirty years ago today, October 4, 1996, we set out for Cleveland. A family, a website, and an online following, two years before Google existed. How it unfolded, at Longreads: longreads.com/2026/09/22/f...

Our essay, “Still on Its Way to Cleveland,” published by Longreads, revisits that experiment in early internet culture and a time when the web felt more like a shared commons than a commercial marketplace. longreads.com/2026/09/22/f...

Come get the facts, ask questions, and hear directly from people who know the system inside and out. 🗓️ Mon. Sep. 28 @ 10:00AM 📍 Delray Beach, FL Sign up: TINYURL.COM/ANGIE4SOCIALSECURITY #AngieForFlorida #SocialSecurity #DelrayBeach #PalmBeachCounty

CBSMiami obtained the grand jury report, and jurors concluded $10 million in taxpayer money was misappropriated as part of a “sophisticated scheme to fund political activities.” Ashley Moody knew about the plan and authorized the settlement. #AngieForFlorida #HopeFlorida

The Petoskey News-Review's editorial board wrote this on October 7, 1996. They saw the potential.

Petoskey New-Review editorial on Oct 7. 1996. Read the full story at Longreads. longreads.com/2026/09/22/f...

In 2012 we rented a beach house in Crucita, Ecuador. Within weeks the beach in front of it was a sardine-processing plant. Open-air sheds, no refrigeration, crews standing in water at high tide, children working. The cleaned fish went to canneries 40 miles up the coast.

In 1997 we found a call for abstracts, got accepted, and presented our road trip to 400 educators at a U.S. Department of Education conference in Chicago. We thought we were describing the future of education. We were describing a year that couldn't happen now. longreads.com/2026/09/22/f...

We asked the staff at the JFK Presidential Library if we could park the motorhome in their lot overnight. They said yes, then locked the gate behind us for the night. Nobody had a policy for that. Someone had a key and decided yes. longreads.com/2026/09/22/f...

Buddy, our golden retriever, was not part of the original plan. He got his own web page anyway. blondins.com/family/buddy/

October 4, 1996. We left Boyne City, Michigan, in a 34-foot motorhome with three kids, a golden retriever, and a desktop computer bolted to the floor. Five miles later it died. Betsy and I wrote about the next nine months for @longreads.

Gibraltar, 2011. A Barbary ape climbed through the car window, took the fruit salad out of my wife's hands, gave her a glare, and left the way he came. I was outside the car, taking a photograph. The photograph is blurry. open.substack.com/pub/mindelo/...

"Six years after COVID ripped this nation apart, we still don’t know what the truth is...To be sure, in 1,100 pages, there are medical sections as well. But it’s the self-love that makes the biggest impression...He’s rich. He’s certainly famous...loves it." He knows. eu.freep.com/story/sports...

I was a manager at Coca-Cola until 1995. I sat through the diversity training. Four years after I left, the company settled the largest race discrimination case in US history. The court-ordered remedy was more training. Where DEI actually came from: materialwitness.markblondin.com/p/a-fraud-th...

Most Democrats can read that poll. Check the demographics.

Let's be clear. Lindsey Graham was a horrible human being.

Breaking Points interview with Kshama Sawant just dropped. Sawant is crazy smart. Her explanation of why her strategy differs from DSA is clear. Kshama Sawant is an American politician, economist, and socialist. She served on the Seattle City Council from 2014 to 2024 www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMcz...

In March, New Zealand released its Phase 2 official COVID-19 report. It wasn't flattering. The MSM buried the story. The contrast to 2020-21, is stark. Then it was a sustained chorus around this: “one of the best health outcomes in the world” materialwitness.markblondin.com/p/the-model-...

Portugal decriminalized every drug known to pharmacology in 2001. This is the story of a grown man weighing a trip across an international border to a cannabis club named after a Catholic prayer. "Portugal Decriminalized Drugs, But I Can’t Buy a Gummy" materialwitness.markblondin.com/p/portugal-d...

King, Tubman, Keller, Parks, Juneteenth. Each made a material demand while it was still dangerous to make it. Each got replaced by a fable — the dream, the legend, the miracle, the tired seamstress, the ice cream. New essay: materialwitness.markblondin.com/p/once-you-s...

Church Committee, Gore/Liberman, Graham/McCain, Iraq, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, Libya, Honduras (2009), Ukraine, Iran. Wealth inequality, for-profit health care, mass incarceration, neoliberalism, 2008 Bailout,... Let's not dwell on Trump. It's a systemic problem.

Nixon started the "War on Drugs" in 1971. By 2023, total cost was ~ $1 trillion. The Global Commission on Drug Policy and the UN high commissioner for human rights, declared it a failure. The "War" created mass incarceration, targeting Black and Hispanic communities. Criminals thrived. #Predictable

New home for Material Witness. The throughline: the penalty for being right before permission — how a sanctioned account gets manufactured, dissenters get marginalized, and the consensus quietly unwinds with no reckoning. materialwitness.markblondin.com/p/portugal-d...