The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 142, January 29, 2023 (V3 #37)
Part of it is observing oneself more impersonally… When you go out into the woods and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree.
The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying, “You’re too this, or I’m too this.” That judging mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.—Ram Dass
‘I’m just trying to go home’: Tyre Nichols heard pleading in released video: The grisly footage, released in four parts, indicates an ambulance did not arrive for more than 20mins after the vicious beating, Victoria Bekiempis, The Guardian, 1/27/23. Ed Note: we’ve run out of words to describe America’s violent culture. This country was built on the brutal behavior of Europeans against native peoples, as well as Africans brought here unwillingly, followed by two hundred and fifty years of brutal repression of slaves and the genocidal conquest of the continent. Now, our modern industrial capitalism relies on the control of human bodies and rapacious exploitation of the natural world. So here we are, repeating learned behavior, expressing trauma on the bodies of fellow human beings. Change must come, we just don’t know how.
Dance
Moon dance,
you were not to blame.
Nor you,
lovely white moth.
But I saw you together.
—Alfred Kreymborg
Politicking
The men that American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest the most violently are those who try to tell them the truth. —H. L. Mencken
The Specter of 2016: McGonigal, Trump, and the Truth about America, Timothy Snyder, Thinking About, 1/26/23: “The Russian operation to get Trump elected in 2016 was real. We are still living under the specter of 2016, and we are closer to the beginning of the process or learning about it than we are to the end. Denying that it happened, or acting as though it did not happen, makes the United States vulnerable to Russian influence operations that are still ongoing, sometimes organized by the same people. It is easy to forget about 2016, and human to want to do so. But democracy is about learning from mistakes, and this arrest makes it very clear that we still have much to learn.” Please read this important article!
Former senior FBI official accused of working for Russian he investigated: Charles McGonigal, a former counterintelligence chief, is also accused of taking $225,000 from a former Albanian intelligence worker while still at the FBI, Shayna Jacobs, Spencer S. Hsu, Devlin Barrett, Shane Harris, Washington Post, 1/23/23
The Police Folklore That Helped Kill Tyre Nichols: A 1992 study claims that officers who show weakness are more likely to be killed. Law-enforcement culture has never recovered, David D. Kirkpatrick, New Yorker, 1/28/23
A Guide to the Possible Forthcoming Indictments of Donald Trump: Despite all of the uncertainty, the information already available makes it possible to know what to watch for, David A. Graham, The Atlantic, 1/23/23: “Here is a field guide to the potential indictments of Donald Trump.”
Pssst! Wanna Buy a Supreme Court Justice? A “donation” of as little as $25,000 can get you “face time” over dinner with a sitting justice of the US Supreme Court, Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 1/26/23
Combating antisemitism today: Holocaust education in the era of Twitter and TikTok, Alan Marcus, The Conversation, 1/25/23: “Rather than teaching the Holocaust as an isolated event, educators must grapple with how it connects to antisemitism past and present. That means adapting to how people learn and live today: online.”
The Democrats’ Green Investments Are Going to Republican States: The wind, solar, and battery facilities spurred by last year’s Democratic legislation are already springing up—in red America, Harold Meyerson, American Prospect, 1/24/23
Is There Anyone in Washington who can Prevent America from Hurtling off a Financial Cliff? Kevin McCarthy’s Republican House is holding the debt ceiling hostage in pursuit of budget cuts, pushing the world’s economy to the brink. “Anyone who tells you they know what the off-ramp here looks like is bluffing,” one congressional aide says, Chris Smith, Vanity Fair, 1/27/23
Florida teachers told to remove books from classroom libraries or risk felony prosecution, Judd Legum, Popular Information, 1/23/23
A Media Ceiling is about to Fall In On Democrats: Wealthy partisans aligned with the GOP are going for that Hispanic vote in a big, big way. They intend to use the same tools that have turned state after state reliably red since the 1980s: radio & TV, Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 1/25/23
Would breaking up Google really do any good? We need to consider consumer welfare, but also technological progress and national security, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 1/26/23
Advanced AI 'could kill everyone’, warn Oxford researchers: MPs told technology has become a ‘literal arms race’ for countries and area should be regulated like nuclear weapons, Sarah Knapton, Telegraph (UK), 1/25/23
Why the world needs Ukrainian victory: Fifteen reasons, Timothy Snyder, Thinking About, 1/23/23: “I am a historian of political atrocity, and for me personally number 1 -- defeating an ongoing genocidal project -- would be more than enough reason to want Ukrainian victory. But every single one of the other fourteen is hugely significant.”
In saying that hope cushions the shock of experience, that one trait balances the directionalism of another, a teleology is implied, unless one know or feel or think that we are here, and that without this balance, hope, our species in its blind mutation might have joined many, many others in extinction.—John Steinbeck (from The Log from the Sea of Cortez)
Books and Culture
Tom Verlaine, frontman and guitarist of US band Television, dies at 73: New York group, which broke up in 1978, best known for Marquee Moon and whose singer-songwriter also worked with Patti Smith, Jane Clinton, The Guardian, 1/28/23
I spoke to a man
Down at the tracks
And I ask him
How he don't go mad
He said, "look here, junior, don't you be so happy
And for heaven's sake, don't you be so sad"
—from “Marquee Moon,” Television, written by Tom Verlaine
Watching the Films of Weimar Germany to Understand Our Increasingly Fascistic Present: “My dive into Weimar Germany taught me that authoritarianism doesn’t always follow a linear path,” Travis Mushett, LitHub, 1/25/23: “The threat may have abated, but it hasn’t disappeared.”
David Crosby Understood the Sharpness of Despair: The musician was gifted, irascible, often disliked by his bandmates, free-flowing on Twitter, and possessed of a singular voice, Amanda Petrusich, The New Yorker, 1/24/23: “There’s a funny, resonant moment in “David Crosby: Remember My Name,” a 2019 documentary … in which Cameron Crowe asks why Crosby is still alive. “No idea, man,” Crosby replies.”
Celebrating Ray Oldenburg (1932-2022): “The third place is such a simple idea - the wonder is that it had to catch on,” Karen Christensen, Newsletter, 1/26/23. Book: Celebrating the Third Place: Inspiring Stories About the Great Good Places at the Heart of Our Communities
“The Future Belonged to the Showy and the Promiscuous.” How Edith Wharton Foresaw the 21st Century: On the Writer’s Enduring Relevance and Foresight, Emily J. Orlando, LitHub, 1/24/23: “She seems to have foreseen the excesses, obsessions, and spectacles of our current moment.”
‘The Sanctuary of Pure Expression,’A new biography of Mina Loy shows that the roving modernist saw artistic genius as a means to self-reinvention, Francesca Wade, NY Review of Books, 2/9/23 issue: “The Future is only dark from outside. Leap into it—and it EXPLODES with Light.”
Pocked with personification
the fossil virgin of the skies
waxes and wanes
—from “Lunar Baedeker,” Mina Loy
Why we need new words for life in the Anthropocene: The Bureau of Linguistical Reality is assembling a new lexicon for people's experience of climate change and environmental upheaval, Richard Fisher, BBC, 1/26/23
What Christopher Hitchens Knew: And what apostate hunters get wrong, Matt Johnson, Persuasion, 1/26/23: “…‘views’ do not really count; that it matters not what you think, but how you think; and that politics are relatively unimportant, while principles have a way of enduring, as do the few irreducible individuals who maintain allegiance to them.”
butterflies, short-horned lizards, plovers and prickly pears, grizzlies,
snakes, owls of all feather and shape, shrews, sturgeon, each drop
of oil renouncing its war draft and returning to its oldest names:
muscle; stamen; tooth; hoof—the land and water laughing aloud,
a laugh that spread the way a fever spreads, like the opposite of death,
of drills—just the earth, with its thousand mouths, singing: I will. I will.
—from “Wildlife,” Franny Choi
Environment and Science
Neil Turok on the case for a parallel universe going backwards in time: To explain the cosmos without invoking cosmic inflation, physicist Neil Turok has proposed the existence of a mirror-image universe going backwards in time from the big bang, Thomas Lewton, New Scientist, 1/25/23
How to see green comet passing Earth for first time in 50,000 years: You may be able to spot the object in a clear, moonless sky -- especially with binoculars or a telescope, Matthew Cappucci, Washington Post, 1/23/23
Space dust from 4.2bn-year-old asteroid could hold key to preventing cataclysmic collisions with Earth: Rubble pile asteroid is almost as old as the solar system, a sign that it can withstand great shocks and may be difficult to destroy, research suggests, Donna Lu, The Guardian, 1/24/23
Exposure to natural environments may be protective against Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s hospitalization, Eric W. Dolan, PsyPost, 1/24/23
New study finds 6 ways to slow memory decline and lower dementia risk, Annabelle Timsit, Washington Post, 1/26/23: “… people in the favorable group (four to six healthy factors) and average group (two to three) had a slower rate of memory decline over time than people with unfavorable lifestyles (zero to one healthy factor).” Ed. Note: Here are the six: Physical exercise, diet, alcohol, smoking, cognitive activity, social contact.
The Cause of Depression Is Probably Not What You Think: Depression has often been blamed on low levels of serotonin in the brain. That answer is insufficient, but alternatives are coming into view and changing our understanding of the disease, Joanna Thompson, Quanta, 1/26/23
A New Field of Neuroscience Aims to Map Connections in the Brain: Scientists working in connectomics are creating comprehensive maps of how neurons connect to one another, Catherine Caruso, Harvard Medical School, 1/19/23
Ants act as olfactory bio-detectors of tumours in patient-derived xenograft mice, Baptiste Piqueret, Élodie Montaudon, Paul Devienne, Chloé Leroy, Elisabetta Marangoni, Jean-Christophe Sandoz, Patrizia d'Ettorre, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 1/25/23: “Our study demonstrates that ants reliably detect tumour cues in mice urine and have the potential to act as efficient and inexpensive cancer bio-detectors.”
Any hominid fossil find with molar teeth can be plugged into a new equation that reveals its species’ prenatal growth rate: Fossil teeth reveal how brains developed in utero over millions of years of human evolution – new research, Tesla Monson, The Conversation, 1/25/23
A Plan for Blowing Up U.S. Climate Politics: An Australian consultant tells his U.S. counterparts that conservative voters will respond to climate messages — as long as they aren’t pushed by liberals, Alexander Burns, Politico, 1/24/23
When Will We Hit Peak Fossil Fuels? Maybe We Already Have: Kingsmill Bond, energy analyst and author, describes the circumstances that hastened the transition of the electricity sector—plus four reasons he’s optimistic about our planet’s future, Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News, 1/26/23
A zero emissions future without the mining boom: A new report finds that the U.S. can reduce lithium demand by up to 90 percent, Blanca Begert, Lylla Younes, Grist, 1/24/23
The Green Technology That Dare Not Speak Its Name: There is a path to a carbon-neutral future. Too bad it doesn’t make us feel good, Francisco Toro, Persuasion, 1/20/23: “Yes, I’m talking about the mass, premature shutdown of nuclear power plants.”
Tree thinning in dense forests could bolster Western snowpack, researchers suggest: In a Washington state forest, a research team thinned trees and created small clearings, leading to more snow accumulation on the forest floor, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 1/25/23
Turning problem sea algae into a replacement for plastic, Jo Harper, BBC, 1/23/23: “Excessive outbreaks of seaweed and microalgae are clogging up waters from the Caribbean to the Baltic. Now both are being harvested alongside farmed crops to create ingredients for cosmetics and food products.”
A few pieces of good news on climate change (and a reality check): The path ahead for climate action is narrow, but a close look at emissions data provides a few reasons to be optimistic, Casey Crownhart, MIT Technology Review, 1/23/23
How pesticides intensify global warming: A new report highlights the link between pesticides and climate change, Maria Parazo Rose, Grist, 1/23/23
The waters of Boothbay Harbor have gotten warmer over the past century, data show: Long-term datasets such as the numbers from Boothbay Harbor help scientists understand the impact of climate change, Annie Ropeik, Maine Monitor, 1/22/23
Sea Otter Recovery Is Sending Ripples through the Ecosystem: On Pleasant Island, Alaska, wolves are feasting on sea otters. That’s surprisingly bad news for deer, Marina Wang, Hakai, 1/24/23
New Study Reveals Arctic Ice, Tracked Both Above and Below, Is Freezing Later: Climate change is affecting the timing of both the freezing of the ice and its melting in the spring, Charlie Miller, Inside Climate News, 1/23/23
People are building artificial beaver dams in drought-stricken Montana: They’re hoping that the new dams will eventually attract real beavers, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 1/23/23
Rekindling the Practice of Cultural Burning: An Act of Climate Hope: Indigenous-led prescribed fire is helping to restore depleted lands and long-suppressed cultural practices, Tara Lohan, The Revelator, 1/23/23
What I had imagined as “nothing” are a bunch of conversing
squirts
remaking flat into intimate.—from “Not Nothing,” Kimiko Hahn
Birds on the Wing
Sedge wrens are nomadic terrestrial birds, Taylor Bennett, Victoria Advocate, 1/13/23
How about some eagle watching? Valentina Mora-Velasquez, Alabama Public Radio, 1/20/23
Climate change is shifting bird migration patterns in Miami, Deirdra Funcheon, Axios, 1/27/23
Rudyard is now the snowy owl capital of Michigan, Brendan Wiesner, The Sault News, 1/27/23
What a week. The mass psychology of a broken culture is a frightening thing to be part of. We grieve for the dead, for ourselves, and still must hope we can make a better future out of this terrible present. Much love to all, keep in touch - David