The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 219, July 21, 2024 (V5 #11)
Hard times require furious dancing.—Alice Walker
What we call man’s power over nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with nature as its instrument.—C.S. Lewis
Books, Music, Art, Culture
Happy Traum, Greenwich Village Folksinger and Bob Dylan Collaborator, Dead at 86: Traum and his group the New World Singers were the first to cover “Blowin' in the Wind,” Angie Martoccio, David Browne, Rolling Stone, 7/18/24 “He would just walk on a stage and you were ready to sing along.”
Passing the Torch: Let's Cede the Power of Reality Creation to the Next Generation, Douglas Rushkoff, Rushkoff, 7/16/24: “When reality becomes unhinged, it is up to good people everywhere to learn the techniques required to navigate it and bend the landscape to our collective will. It’s not about which old guy is the right guy to take the torch and lead us forward. It’s about forging the communities of solidarity and collective action required for us all to move forward together. We must seize the tools for this co-creation.”
Two kinds of people: Literary binaries. On Miranda July, saints and sinners, and more, Kara Rota, Dirt, 7/16/24: “More than one kind of person knows that a binary opens a portal, a space between, meant for stepping through.”
Oscar Levant nails it again. . .David Lehman, Best American Poetry, 7/17/24: “Oscar Levant defined a politician as a man who will ‘double-cross that bridge when he gets to it.’”
How America’s Sex Education—and Oversexed Culture—Continues to Fail Women: on Moving the Conversation About Controlling Women’s Bodies Beyond Abortion, Natalie Lampert, LitHub, 7/19/24: “Sex ed teaches girls to be ashamed. Porn and pop culture distort our thinking, providing a script for sex that leaves many young people feeling insecure and alienated.” Book: The Big Freeze: A Reporter's Personal Journey Into the World of Egg Freezing and the Quest to Control Our Fertility
Rethinking Holocaust Memory after October 7, Marianne Hirsch, Public Books, 7/15/24: “After October 7, we are seeing how, at moments of crisis and danger, the phantom of the Holocaust can resurface to reactivate trauma in Jewish communities for those who were there. But we are also seeing how it activates inherited trauma for those who, decidedly, were not there.”
All the World is Myth: Put the peace of the heart before everything, Paul Kingsnorth, Abbey of Misrule, 7/15/24: “The heart - the nous - is where our minds really dwell. It is where the Spirit resides, and where the stories come from and where images settle. When the heart sees images, it understands instantly. Images are much older than words, just as songs are much older than arguments. We are regressing today, in a way, to the mean. The age of the Internet is moving us away from the brief age of words and back into the age of images.”
Low’s Alan Sparhawk on the death of his wife and bandmate Mimi Parker: ‘If you fall in love, you know this could happen:’ Sparhawk spent four decades with Parker, three of them as the core of alt-rock legends Low, before she died from cancer aged 55. He discusses finding his new, digitally-altered voice amid grief – and why he’s channelling Cher, David Hutcheon, The Guardian, 7/19/24: “Sparhawk had mental health and substance issues, but the couple endured them, Parker stoic behind her drums, carrying the air of someone who understood life and would remain unbowed.”
Can you see (I know you can see)
my eyes
(I know you can see)
I am calling (calling),
out to
(you)
Can you hear?
—from “Can You Hear” by Alan Sparhawk
Politics, Technology, Economics
This is All Very Weird, Right? I mean... this is weird, Charlotte Clymer, Web Thoughts, 7/17/24: “…if President Biden had been in the same exact scenario, does anyone believe political press would let it slide that we haven’t heard from medical professionals?”
This Is a Test for America: We are in danger of flunking it, Yascha Mounk, Newsletter, 7/16/24: “It is in moments of tragedy or upheaval that the true state of a nation is often revealed.”
Things Fall Apart: But They Can Be Put Together. Again, Joe Klein, Sanity Clause, 7/19/24: “if the Democrats want to seize the moment and revivify our democracy, they need to get a move on….we should focus on the future with optimism and energy and joy. Especially joy. We are the luckiest people in history. In the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s favorite prayer, ‘Let Unconquerable Gladness Dwell!’”
The Foolish Notion of Inevitability: No, the election is not over, no matter how much Republicans behave as if they have it locked up. November 5 is still 109 days away, Steven Beschloss, America, America, 7/18/24: “The majority of voters will not suddenly embrace a future that they strongly opposed a week ago.”
Both Sides: The Faith of Our Times, Timothy Snyder, Thinking About, 7/21/24: “The cult of Both Sides is the dogmatic distraction from the bloody sacrifice of a republic.”
Dark Money Just Got Darker: Wall Street Helped Fund Project 2025: Financial giants are helping wealthy donors funnel cash to Project 2025 and other extremist causes with zero transparency or tax repercussions, Katya Schwenk, Helen Santoro, Freddy Brewster, The Lever, 7/17/24: “Once money is in a donor-advised fund, the original donor can send it to any charity of their choosing, but the ultimate source of the money, and the amount, is completely obscured.”
Don’t Rock the Vote: Democrats are the party that benefits from low voter turnout. They just don’t know it yet, Wally Nowinski, Noahpinion, 7/21/24: “If everyone in the country voted, Donald Trump would probably win.”
The Convert: JD Vance is forging an ideology of right-populism. That will have major consequences for the future of the GOP, the Democrats, and the United States, Damon Linker, Notes from the Middle Ground, 7/17/24: “Trumpism now has an ideological heir, leaving the Reaganism that’s been shunted to the side for the past eight years well and truly dead.”
Ten Strong Suggestions for Surviving the Age of Misinformation, A.J. Jacobs, Experimental Living, 7/15/24: “Humans — at least those in current society — are drawn to certitude. We need to fight against that urge.”
Looking for hope in a harrowing time: “Every history of oppression is also a history of resistance,” Moira Donegan, Men Yell at Me, 7/17/24: “I also take hope: hope in people, armed with little besides their own sense of right and wrong, doing what is in their power to help their neighbors, their peers.”
Most Americans support Supreme Court reforms: Most Americans also disapprove of the job the court is doing, Philip Bump, Washington Post, 7/17/24: “6 in 10 Americans view the Supreme Court’s job performance with disapproval…a plurality of Americans — just under half — say that the court is too conservative.”
Heritage Foundation’s ‘Project 2025’ is just the latest action plan from a group with an over 50-year history of steering GOP lawmaking, Zachary Albert, The Conversation, 7/18/24: “Kevin Roberts, the president of Heritage, has described the group’s role as ‘institutionalizing Trumpism.’”
The Trump Attack and Authoritarian History: Strongmen have distinctive reactions to "shock events,” Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Lucid, 7/18/24: “The unfolding of the terrible moments of the attack on Trump reminds us that strongmen leaders are built differently than other people. They think ahead and they are able to remain in control of the situation, including at the most dramatic moments.”
Political Violence in the United States Is Rising – and It Might Be Up to Americans to Say “Enough!” Rachel Kleinfeld, Just Security, 7/19/24: “Perhaps it is time for an “Enough!” movement for America. Instead of watching the car drive off a cliff, as if someone else were inside, we could recognize that we are all passengers heading towards the precipice. And that we need to take the wheel, because no one else is going to save us.”
How AI Will Change Education: Predicting Innovation in Education, from Personalized Learning to the Downfall of College, Rex Woodbury, Digital Native, 7/17/24: “Marshall McLuhan: ‘Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn’t know the first thing about either.’…AI will (finally) be the change-maker education has waited for, though its impact on education will be muted by bureaucracy and old habits.”
Don’t look up: the massive Microsoft/Crowdstrike data outage is a huge wake-up call, Gary Marcus, Marcus on AI, 7/19/24: “If a single bug can take down airlines, banks, retailers, media outlets, and more, what on earth makes you think we are ready for AGI?”
Overconfidence at the RNC: The Republican Party is ascendant but may be more frail than it looks, Ross Barkan, Persuasion, 7/18/24: “Republicans remain relentlessly online, convinced their obsessions over stolen elections, the alleged martyrs of Jan. 6, and eliminating trans rights are shared by the broader electorate.” [DW: The RNC is confident not because they think they will actually win the election, but because they have already plans in place to subvert the election and win it for DJT in the Republican House and the Republican Supreme Court.]
After Trump’s Speech, It’s Absurd to Suggest He Can’t Be Beaten: Trump’s surreal, subdued, and unfocused address gave Democrats an opening to turn the tide of this campaign, John Nichols, The Nation, 7/19/24: “Democrats are better positioned than the pundits will tell you to run against the man and what has become of the Republican Party— because, while the GOP is now a cult of personality, the United States is not.”
A Searing Reminder That Trump Is Unwell: His bizarre diatribe at the RNC shows why the pro-democracy coalition is so worried about beating him, Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, 7/19/24 (No paywall)
The extraordinary duplicity of Musk's $180 million donation to support Trump, Judd Legum, Rebecca Crosby, Popular Information, 7/17/24: “Musk's large donations to America PAC position it to aggressively exploit a new loophole in federal campaign finance law.”
In Private Speech, J.D. Vance Said the “Devil Is Real” and Praised Alex Jones as a Truth-Teller: Vance gave the speech to the secretive Teneo Network. The GOP vice presidential nominee has been a member of the Leonard Leo-backed group, which seeks to cultivate conservative influence in business and culture, Andy Kroll, Nick Surgey, ProPublica, 7/16/24
On Abortion, J.D. Vance is the Bridge between Trump and Project 2025: Project 2025 and Vance agree: “The Dobbs decision is just the beginning,” Shawn Musgrave, The Intercept, 7/18/24
Satan Declines to Buy J.D. Vance’s Soul, Andy Borowitz, Borowitz Report, 7/17/24: “The fun part of my job is making a person turn to the dark side,” Satan said. “J.D. was already there.”
Understanding the new Tech Right: There are many reasons some tech companies and figures are now supporting Trump, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 7/17/24: “…seven main factors pushing tech to the right: Taxes and regulation, Antitrust, Crypto, Negative polarization and the “techlash,” DEI and leftist activism, The bitter aftertaste of the “cancel culture” era, Ethnic issues.”
Don’t Normalize the Political Violence in Gaza, Rabbi Brent Rosen, Shalom Rav, 7/17/24: “This is a battle for hope, and hope is the last thing we’ve got. Let’s not let them take it away from us.”
The Basic Con
Those who can’t find anything to live for,
always invent something to die for.
Then they want the rest of us to
die for it, too.
—Lew Welch
Science, Environment
The GOP climate plan is...way worse than the Taliban's? Not to mention every other country on earth, Bill McKibben, Crucial Years, 7/16/24: “[under Republicans]… the U.S.—biggest contributor by far to the stock of atmospheric gases now warming the planet—will be the only nation on earth not taking part in the effort to rein in the warming.”
Cutting-Edge Technology Could Massively Reduce the Amount of Energy Used for Air Conditioning: Roughly 10 percent of the world’s energy is used for cooling, with much of the necessary electricity generated by fossil fuels. Companies need to make AC much more efficient—as soon as possible, Chris Baraniuk, Wired, 7/16/24
The climate benefits of mangroves: Their roots and branches help break up waves and reduce flooding in coastal communities, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 7/15/24: “…mangroves grow very quickly. And as they grow, they absorb a lot of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store the carbon in their roots, leaves, and branches.”
Rescuing Kelp Through Science: Breakthrough genetic research at a Massachusetts lab could save the world’s vanishing kelp forests—and support American kelp farming, too, Alexandra Talty, Civil Eats, 7/17/24
How the Continual Movement of Wildlife Regulates the Natural World: on the Integral Role of Migratory Patterns to Human and Environmental Wellbeing, James Bradley, LitHub, 7/15/24: “Human cultures have also long relied upon these vast, interlocking cycles of migration.”
What’s better for bees? More habitat or less pesticides? A new study focused on protecting pollinator diversity found that semi-natural habitats play a more important role than pesticide use in rice fields, Warren Cornwall, Anthropocene, 7/17/24
Why scientists are marveling at a potential spade-toothed whale sighting: If scientists confirm the creature belongs to the rare species, it will mark only the seventh such specimen ever studied, Lizette Ortega, Washington Post, 7/16/24: “The family of beaked whales represents a mysterious group of mammals. Because they probably spend most of their time diving deep in the ocean hunting for meals of squid and fish, they are rarely spotted by people.” (No paywall)
Why melting ice sheets are making our days longer: As polar ice melts, water moves from the poles toward the equator — making our Earth bulkier and rotate slower, Kasha Patel, Washington Post, 7/15/24
Birthing the Blob: With ecosystems increasingly squeezed by anthropogenic warming, even cleaning up pollution can cause problems, Michael Allen, Hakai, 7/18/24: “…environmental progress in China—aimed at clearing up the country’s substantial air pollution—inadvertently contributed to the extreme sea surface temperatures that cooked the Pacific coast from Alaska to California.”
How fracking could unlock a clean energy future: Technology pioneered by the oil and gas industry is fueling a new type of carbon-free power plant, Harry Stevens, Washington Post, 7/18/24: “Enhanced geothermal plants use technology pioneered by oil and gas drillers to reproduce the conditions of a conventional geothermal well. This makes it possible to extract heat in many more places.” (No paywall)
Bacteria could be a useful tool for tackling PFAS pollution, Katherine McMahon, Sarah Howard, Environmental Health News, 7/19/24: “Both aerobic and anaerobic bacteria are capable of breaking down PFAAS, meaning degradation can take place under a variety of conditions.”
Four-Billion-Year-Old Zircons May Contain Our Earliest Evidence of Fresh Water: Australian crystals hint at fresh water, as well as land rising above Earth’s Hadean ocean, Nathaniel Scharping, Eos, 7/16/24: “Earth may have contained fresh water 500 million years earlier than previously thought.”
The Search for Alien Life Starts on Earth: But the places that could most help scientists find it are melting away, Marina Koren, The Atlantic, 7/17/24: “The faster that extreme ecosystems disappear from our planet, the more limited astronomers’ concept of life may be, raising the risk that we overlook a faraway spark somewhere else. No amount of sophisticated scientific instruments can make up for that.” (No paywall)
The Cosmic Sublime: On the Unpredictability and Allure of Comets: the Age-Old Individual and Collective Experience of Watching the Skies, Ruby Todd, LitHub, 7/16/24: “Even when comets disappoint, they reveal truths about our fears and hopes, and about the epoch in which we live.” Book: Bright Objects
It's the end of the world as we know it (I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it (I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine (time I had some time alone)
I feel fine (I feel fine)
—from “It’s the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine),” REM, by John Michael Stipe / Michael E. Mills / Peter Lawrence Buck / William Thomas Berry
Health, Wellness
Scientists make DNA discovery that could help find pancreatic cancer cure: Hope for new treatments after researchers find spread of disease is aided by shutting down of molecules in key genes, Andrew Gregory, The Guardian, 7/14/24
The power of proprioception: how to improve your ‘sixth sense’ – and become healthier and happier: It is our physical sense of where we are in space and is essential to our quality of life as we age. Here are simple, everyday ways to test and train it, Joel Snape, The Guardian, 7/18/24: “The simplest option is to add more movements to your everyday life that challenge your balance, hand-eye coordination or sense of movement – or embrace the opportunity as it arises.”
Long COVID puzzle pieces are falling into place – the picture is unsettling, Ziyad Al-Aly, The Conversation, 7/18/24: “…long COVID is a complex chronic condition that can result in more than 200 health effects across multiple body systems…. Trivializing COVID-19 as an inconsequential cold or equating it with the flu does not align with reality.”
Birds
Let's Talk Crow: How can we possibly think we can communicate with non-human life forms from other galaxies when we can't communicate with intelligent carbon-based life forms right here on earth? Laura Erickson, For the Birds, 7/15/24: “If we haven’t figured out what their vocalizations mean, much less how to engage in a two-way conversation with them, how can we even begin to imagine communicating with beings from other solar systems?”
A Surprisingly Simple Solution to Protect Birds From Wind Turbines Gets its Biggest Test Yet: Painting one turbine blade black has shown promise for preventing collisions. Now researchers are seeing if it can work in Wyoming, Kylie Mohr, Audubon, Summer 2024 issue
Give men wings, and reduce their smartness a little, and many of them would be almost good enough to call crows.—Henry Ward Beecher
Right now, now— it’s time to organize ourselves and be active. Never give up hope. Even if it is just to retain some sense of sanity, let’s take every opportunity to get as many of us as possible engaged and active. Send me your ideas, stories, poems, art, music, messages of joy.
I say this every week because I really mean it — wherever you are, whoever you are with, whatever you are doing — thanks for who you are and what you do. Please continue to keep in touch. Send messages and your own news. Hearing from you makes this all worthwhile.
Above all, stay well; share love; work for good. We need each other, now more than ever.
Love always—David