Jonathan Dresner
LightNews LightNews
banner
jondresner.bsky.social
Jonathan Dresner
@jondresner.bsky.social
710 followers 230 following 11K posts
Japan/World/Food/Migration historian. Nerd, geek, comics. Blogger. Rootless Cosmopolitan. Still masking. Views expressed are mine alone (RTs are someone else's). Cis he/him/his.
Same handle on Spore.Social.
There are no good-faith anti-trans arguments.
Posts Replies Media Videos
jondresner.bsky.social
If you see this, I IMPLORE you to post a picture from whatever device you’re using without explanation
A single greenish banana sits on the corner of a yellow painted metal column bumper in an underground garage/carpark, between columnar pipes and a silver car.
November 28, 2025 at 6:59 PM
jondresner.bsky.social
Preorder! (I'm such a sucker for swag)
Screenshot of a preorder confirmation for Feed The People: Why Industrial Food is Good and how to Make It even Better through Bookshop.org.
November 20, 2025 at 8:11 PM
jondresner.bsky.social
Sometimes you sit in chair, and sometimes chair sits you down

[this post will self-destruct in 10... 9...]
Large person sitting on collapsed metal folding chair all the way down on the ground
November 15, 2025 at 8:41 PM
jondresner.bsky.social
Post a perfect album from the 90’s that isn’t Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden or Alice In Chains.
[I was deep in my folk era in the 90s, and don't actually own albums by any of the above-named acts]
Cover of the album "When October Goes: Autumn Love Songs", featuring colorful leaves around the border of a rust field, with the title and a list of contributors: Christine Lavin John Gorka Cliff Eberhardt Patty Larkin Cheryl Wheeler and others [it says that, I'm not getting lazy]
October 29, 2025 at 1:25 PM
jondresner.bsky.social
It would be funny if one sent you to baseball discourse and the other to discussions of seafaring employment.
Bluesky Trending sidebar showing topics: NBA Tip-Off East Wing Demolition Louvre Heist Platner Mariners Mariners
October 23, 2025 at 2:17 PM
jondresner.bsky.social
My ceiling right now, for example
Section of white ceiling scattered with prismatic rainbows
September 18, 2025 at 10:27 PM
jondresner.bsky.social
Missions Accomplished!
The funniest thing about #SPX is the surprised look on artists' faces when you tell them it's your first time at SPX (because of living in Kansas, moving basically next door) because it's such an important industry event!
Exhibit hall diagram for Small Press Expo 2025 with hand-written notes indicating selected artists, next to the attendee badge, featuring a drawing of people wearing SPX shirts under a street sign saying Attending 2025.
September 13, 2025 at 11:15 PM
jondresner.bsky.social
Hmm...
Massive Vollis Simpson "whirligig" mobile sculpture against a solid blue sky. American Visionary Arts Museum, Baltimore
September 10, 2025 at 10:18 PM
jondresner.bsky.social
Kosh from Babylon 5, an alien entirely encased in an 'encounter suit' with an angular long head with a single apeture at the front, broad hard shoulders swooping around the head, and a cloak-like cover. Text: "YES."
September 5, 2025 at 1:18 AM
jondresner.bsky.social
Finally got around to putting up the window decorations, which include a lot of crystals
Inside ceiling with crosbeam and support pillar, with a stairway in the background, and an Escher print over a stairwell. There are small refracted rainbows scattered across the beams and ceiling.
August 22, 2025 at 2:57 PM
jondresner.bsky.social
Obligatory Number of The Beast screenshot.
Bluesky account header for Jonathan Dresner, @jondresner.bsky.social, with a Japanese floral print banner, a multicolored menorah icon, 666 followers, 226 following, 9.5K posts. Bio reads; "Japan/World/Food/Migration historian. Nerd, geek, comics. Blogger. Rootless Cosmopolitan. Still masking. Views expressed are mine alone (RTs are someone else's). Cis he/him/his. Same handle on Spore.Social. There are no good-faith anti-trans arguments."
August 21, 2025 at 12:06 PM
jondresner.bsky.social
Name a TV show with only one or two seasons
Two young adults standing on a rooftop in front of a city at night: a white woman with a glowing dagger of energy in one hand and a black man wearing a flowing cloak that fades into dramatic smoke on one side. From Marvel's Cloak and Dagger series.
June 18, 2025 at 3:59 PM
jondresner.bsky.social
Front yard friend!
Brown rabbit sitting very still in green grass, in profile, but with head ever so slightly tilted towards the photographer, the proximate threat
May 31, 2025 at 3:22 AM
jondresner.bsky.social
Zuck: The average American has three friends.
Picture of the "Three Monkeys" (from left to right: see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil) from the carved gate at Nikko Toshogu in Japan, the shrine to Tokugawa Ieyasu. The monkeys are brown, with white faces and bellies, sitting on a spiral-carved gold with blue flowers base, with carved three-stamen flowers (lotuses?) around them. The supporting rafters above and below have ornately carved metal decorative plaques. Photo by Jonathan Dresner, c. 1984-1985
May 1, 2025 at 11:26 PM
jondresner.bsky.social
Good Mail Days catch-up, final installment!

@falseknees.bsky.social annual book and very timely stickers from @riversidewings.bsky.social !
Small trade paperback "Life After Life" by Joshua Barkman, with a blue cover and three chickadees (I think: black head, white shoulders and breast, blue standing in for gray) coming in for a landing (wings in various flying positions) around a small packet wrapper Three trans pride flag stickers with five-pointed stars centered at the top. Each has a chemical diagram of a hormone molecule, testosterone or estrogen and graffiti/stencil-style text at the bottom. There are two estrogen stickers with "Death Before Detransition" and "Come And Take It", and one larger Testosterone sticker with "Death Before Detransition"
April 26, 2025 at 1:29 PM
jondresner.bsky.social
Good Mail Days catch-up, continued!

Skin Deep: Obverse and Reverse by @korybing.bsky.social and Rigsby, WI: Vol. 1, Foothold by @secase.bsky.social !

Despite one being very magical and the other deeply real, surprising amount of thematic overlap as young rural people find their way in the world
Two graphic novel trade paperbacks. On the left, Kory Bing's Skin Deep: Obverae and Reverse with a cover illustration featuring many mythical (and charming) characters looking over the title from above and below. The title is in a font that is reversible, so it can be read correctly right-side up or upside down, and the landscapes are arranged similarly. On the right, S.E. Case's Rigsby, WI, Volume 1: Foothold. The cover features two teens lying across a leafy surface with their heads next to each other but oriented so they are upside down to each other; one presents as a brown-skinned young man, the other as a redheaded white woman smoking a cigarette. They are looking towards each other. Now that I think about it, the cover compositions are surprisingly similar.
April 25, 2025 at 11:31 PM
jondresner.bsky.social
Good Mail Days catch-up, continued!

Geetanjali Shree and @shreedaisy.bsky.social's latest novel (loved Tomb of Sand) and history from @lollardfish.bsky.social and @profgabriele.com (Bright Ages was good!)
Two books, side by side, both hardcover. On the left, "Our City That Year" by Geetanjali Shree, translation by Daisy Rockwell. "International Booker Prize-winning Author and translator of Tomb of Sand": The picture is a window on a scene of shadowy figures in a glowing night, set in a purple wall with leaves and stalks around. On the right, "Oathbreakers: The War That Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe" by Matthew Gabriele & David M. Perry, authors of The Bright Ages: The words surround a medieval sword's hilt, guard and blade (pointed down, mostly out of view) on a parchment background
April 25, 2025 at 5:57 PM
jondresner.bsky.social
Good Mail Days catch-up, continued!

Pins from @ironcircuscomics.bsky.social and @ashantifortson.com, and some back-catalog ephemera from @evandahm.bsky.social !
Evan Dahm art: Lacunae & Aftermath: two places by evan dahn, is a landscape shaped paperback, with a rock battlement and flag on the cover FRIENDS DECK is a deck of playing cards with two anthropomorphic cartoon figures on the box, one purple with an armored turtle feel, and one yellow skinned in red with a lizard-likechead and energetic posture Three lapel pins: two beaded Palestinian flags flanking a robot head with x-dead eyes, a lolling tongue, and flames shooting from a crack.
April 24, 2025 at 6:13 PM
jondresner.bsky.social
I've been remiss on Good Mail Days, so here's some makeup posts.

Prints! From @hagofbolding.bsky.social of www.kendrap.com and www.fairmeadowcomic.com ! The comic is great fun, and I've been eyeing the Smaug for a *while* so when the fundraiser print came up I couldn't resist
Yellow, red, orange risograph print of smaller female lions eating from the carcass of a larger (male?) lion with the words "Get mad. Stay mad" by Kendra Phillips Risograph print by Kendra Phillips of Smaug the dragon from Tolkien's The Hobbit. The flying dragon, breathing fire, is on the peak of Lonely Mountain. The "back door" is visible, and in the foreground the dwarves huddle around a fire in a sheltered hollow, while Bilbo, the hobbit, looks at Smaug. Cool blue-greens, vivid red.
April 24, 2025 at 4:06 PM
jondresner.bsky.social
Our last, best hope...
Kermit the Frog, a green felt puppet (technically 'muppet' because a Jim Henson creation with marionette-style hand control) with long skinny arms (apparently with hands clasped behind the back), an olive-green pointed neck fringe (more like a lizard than a frog), ping-pong ball eyes with marker'd slit irises, and a large hand-controlled mouth with a gently pointed snout and red insides, in a slight smile.
April 22, 2025 at 3:33 PM
jondresner.bsky.social
For... reasons, we currently have custody of a creature that likes to dip a paw in my seltzer.
Hope you feel better soon!
White and orange cat looking vacant, sitting on a wooden side table with family pictures in the background A white and orange cat licks a paw while leaning over a large ceramic mug
March 29, 2025 at 6:40 PM
jondresner.bsky.social
Alt text didn't quite fit, so I put two copies so the whole alt text could be included.

This is from my course lecture...
Sources lie. Sometimes deliberately: someone is trying to convince someone else, or get away with something, or make something happen that shouldn't. More often it's not intentional; mostly it's a side effect of the fact that sources are not created for our benefit, but by and for the people we are studying. Nobody explains what Rice Krispies are unless there's a very good reason; we assume that the people we are communicating with understand these basic things about our world without needing to specify how puffed rice breakfast cereals work (or breakfast, or rice) or the many ways we use them. When governments record statistics, it's the ones that they think are useful; when polling was invented, they asked questions they wanted answers to, not questions we have now; diaries are usually written for one's self, not for publication (though it does happen, and that's a whole other kind of lie). Sometimes a source is trying to tell the truth, freely and completely, and still gets it wrong, because they forgot, or made a mistake, or got information from bad sources, or even their whole truth and nothing but the truth is only one perspective on a complicated situation which cannot possibly be understood entirely without more information. Sometimes sources lie by not existing: either because they were destroyed deliberately, or accidentally, or worn away by time, the sources we wish were here to tell us something instead can tell us nothing. Sources lie. But they're all we have. Historians don't like to use the term "bias" because too many people (especially students, I'm afraid) assume that a bias must mean outright fabrication, or that you can just dismiss a "biased" source. Even if a biased source is lying to you, though, it is still a source: it tells you what that author wants you to know and to think, and might give you some insight into why, and might help explain why some people went along with it, for example. Historians have written whole chapters and books about rumors and distortions and lies because they are useful in understanding what people want, need, and value. Historians spend a lot of time assessing the credibility of our sources by comparing them to other sources, looking for overlap and contrast and patterns. We spend our energy thinking about what our sources are good for, given what we know about author, context, quality, and using them to answer the questions that we can answer, as best as we can. Because we can't go back and get more sources. Sometimes, sure, we discover new materials, and sometimes we realize that materials we have can be useful in new ways. But we have to assess the credibility of the new stuff, too, and though we can sometimes do the nearly miraculous (like reading the older layer of palimpsest parchment books that were reused, which is where a lot of "new discoveries" of old Greek sources come from these days) we still can't go back in time and get MORE, or ask people in history to tell us something we don't already have written down. We have questions and if we're going to answer them, we have to do it with the sources that we have.
March 25, 2025 at 1:37 AM
jondresner.bsky.social
Saved you a screenshot of the likes count, though
Post from @adigoesswimming.bsky.social Centrists: Leftist language policing has gone TOO FAR!!!!!!!! Actual literal in-power Republican government: we have scrubbd the word "transgender" from every website [smiley face] 2 replies, 131 reposts, 666 likes
February 18, 2025 at 11:01 PM
jondresner.bsky.social
Weird, I don't see a "cancel my membership" button anywhere. Time to email!
Screenshot of the American Historical Association My AHA age. It says "Welcome Jonathan Dresner!" "You are currently logged in as [redacted]" "Your individual membership began on 7/9/1997 and will expire on 7/1/2025. Your member number is [end of screenshot]"
January 17, 2025 at 9:03 PM
jondresner.bsky.social
We saw the most amazing collection at a small touristy general store in Greece
January 1, 2025 at 5:45 AM