The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 157, May 14, 2023 (V4 #1)
I finally understand
For a woman it ain't easy tryin' to raise a man
You always was committed
A poor single mother on welfare, tell me how you did it
There's no way I can pay you back, but the plan
Is to show you that I understand: you are appreciated
—from “Dear Mama,” Tupac Shakur
Books, Art, Music, Culture
Of Songs and Stories: What Bruce Springsteen Learned From Flannery O’Connor: on the Literary Influences Underpinning Nebraska, Warren Zanes, LitHub, 5/10/23: “Though Springsteen didn’t work with what could be called grotesques, he did create characters caught in their own blocks of stone.” Book: Deliver Me from Nowhere
Before Dylan, There Was Connie Converse. Then She Vanished: There’s a resurgence of interest in the pioneering singer-songwriter who disappeared when she was 50, Howard Fishman, NY Times, 5/6/23 (Gift article, no paywall) “She was the female Bob Dylan,” Ellen Stekert, a singer, folk music scholar and song collector told me.” Ed. note: what a great discovery, and what a loss.
And the day gathered in
To a single light
And the shadows rising
From the brim of the night
—from “How Sad, How Lovely,” Connie Converse
‘People who really love books will come’: poet opens bookstore in mountainous village in China to provide space for locals to read and children to study: A bookstore in the middle of nowhere built in the shape of the number seven and containing 7,000 books has caught attention online in mainland China, Alica Yan, South China Morning Post, 5/7/23
Chris Strachwitz, founder of East Bay’s Arhoolie Records and major figure in roots revival, dies at 91, Sam Whiting, SF Chronicle, 5/7/23
Limiting what novelists can write about won’t help readers, Kathleen Parker, Washington Post, 5/12/23: “Why invite the wrath of the overly sensitive? Because truth demands it.”
Why Does Hollywood Keep Returning to Peter Pan? the Evolution of a Pretty Depressing Character, Jonathan Russell Clark, LitHub, 5/12/23: “He’s like the imp version of Leonardo DiCaprio.”
On “Mothers of Sierra Leone”: Improving Maternal Health Through Storytelling, Michael Kramp, Fathima Wakeel, Jordyn Pykon, Nahjiah Miller, LA Review of Books, 5/10/23: “Black women continue to develop new communities, technologies, and strategies to prioritize their healthcare stories and options.”
The Rediscovery of America: why Native history is American history: Historian Ned Blackhawk’s new book stresses the importance of telling US history with a wider and more inclusive lens, David Smith, The Guardian, 5/8/23 Book: The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History Ed. Note: I am reading this book now; it is outstanding.
4 factors that contributed to the record low history scores for US eighth graders, Diana D’Amico Pawlewicz, The Conversation, 5/11/23: “The test scores showed that 86% of America’s eighth graders were not proficient in U.S. history, and 79% were not proficient in civics.”
The Giant Brain Suck of 2023, Mark Hurst, Creative Good, 5/12/23: “…the danger we face is from the companies. If we want to maintain our mental privacy, if we want to support the writers on strike, if we want to preserve any semblance of a creative or free society, we have to resist.”
Doug Rushkoff Is Ready to Renounce the Digital Revolution: The former techno-optimist has taken a decisive political left turn. He says it’s the only human option, Malcolm Harris, Wired, 5/11/23: “I find, a lot of times, digital technologies are really good at exacerbating the problem while also camouflaging the problem. They make things worse while making it look like something’s actually changed.”
What Michael J. Fox Figured Out: How do you maintain optimism as things keep getting worse? John Hendrickson, Atlantic, 5/10/23: “As long as I’m communicating what I communicate, I don’t really care.”
Hope is the Thing with Feathers: a Meditation about Empathy on a Dying World, Kenn Orphan, 3/28/23: “…empathy isn’t about solving anything. It is about presence.”
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
—from “Hope” is the thing with feathers, Emily Dickinson
Politicking
When We All Vote: In My Voting Era Encourages Teens to Get Registered and Involved Before They Turn 18: In this op-ed, a high school junior explains how she got engaged in political organizing, Imani Johnson, TeenVogue, 5/8/23: “…the majority of people who voted belong to age groups that won’t live to be impacted by a lot of the issues currently on the ballot — but we, the younger generations, will.”
Harlan Crow Sure Isn’t Paying for Your Kid’s School: Of all that’s come out of the past few weeks, this is perhaps the most insulting, Dahlia Lithwick, Slate, 5/8/23: “This is no longer an ethics problem. This is a democracy reform problem, and it signals first and foremost an effort to deform democracy to serve the Harlan Crows and the Leonard Leos of the world.”
Billionaire Harlan Crow Also Bankrolled GOP Lawmakers Blocking SCOTUS Ethics Reform: A new analysis shows Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have received more than $450,000 from the same GOP megadonor who has lavished Justice Clarence Thomas with undisclosed gifts, Kenny Stancil, Common Dreams, 5/9/23
'Time to Subpoena Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow,' Says Watchdog: "Our system of checks and balances demands that the Senate hold the Supreme Court accountable by compelling Thomas to testify publicly," said Stand Up America's Brett Edkins, Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams, 5/11/23
Is Justice Thomas the worst Supreme Court justice ever? His Bruen gun rights decision is killing Americans every day, Lucian K. Truscott IV, Salon, 5/13/23: “Using his Supreme Court robes to cloak his irrational and yes, insane reasoning, Thomas came up with a whole new interpretation of the Second Amendment even more extreme than the one written by his pal Antonin Scalia in District of Columbia v. Heller.”
Neil Gorsuch is Preparing His Revenge: Gutting America's Protective Agencies: Fulfilling Bannon’s and Trump’s promise to dismantle — or eviscerate — most of America’s regulatory agencies, leaving us all subject to the tender mercies of the country’s billionaires & CEOs…Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 5/12/23: “Among other things on the rightwing billionaire wish-list: virtually the entirety of America’s ability to protect its citizens from corporate predation rests on what’s called the Chevron deference (more on that in a moment), which the Court appears prepared to overturn with a case they just accepted last week.”
The Right’s Assault on Divorce Will Put More Women at Risk: Roe wasn’t the culmination of Republican attempts to control women’s autonomy, but perhaps just the beginning, Molly Jong-Fast, Vanity Fair, 5/10/23: “Are women autonomous people in charge of their own reproduction? According to Justice Thomas, granting these rights was an error that needs to be corrected. Republicans corrected one right with Dobbs, and now they are going to address other elements of women’s autonomy.”
The New Right Loves the State: American conservatives are flirting with the authoritarian-adjacent European conservatism of old, Francis Fukuyama, Persuasion, 5/10/23: “…this new type of conservative is not talking about rolling back particular policies; they are challenging the very premises of the liberal state and toying with outright authoritarianism.”
What Could Turn Biden’s Reelection Upside Down: The X factors of the 2024 presidential race, David Frum, The Atlantic, 5/9/23: “The X factors have to be weighed. But they have to be weighed against all of the other factors that point, at present, toward the conventional wisdom of Biden’s reelection.”
What the Debt Limit Fight Is Actually About: It’s not about debt at all. It’s about turning back the political clock 100 years, Jon Schwarz, The Intercept, 5/6/23: “One political faction has decamped to a fantasy world. Meanwhile, the other faction is living in another fantasy world in which the first faction hasn’t done this.”
A Culture of Repression and Neglect: The inaction of Jordan Neely’s fellow passengers underscores the mistrust pervading our public spaces. We see a city operating with the fearful logic of a jail, Rachael Bedard, NY Review of Books, 5/11/23
The Poverty Paradox: why is there still so much economic hardship in the US?: In a new book, author Mark Rank looks at why one of the world’s wealthiest countries has such a high rate of poverty, David Smith, The Guardian, 5/11/23 Book: The Poverty Paradox: Understanding Economic Hardship Amid American Prosperity
He Told the Truth About Iowa’s Polluted Water and Then He Lost His Job: An interview with Chris Jones about the truth and the environment, Lyz, Men Yell at Me, 5/10/23: “Our water here in Iowa is polluted just as legally as black people were segregated. The agricultural and political establishments have made sure of that. For industry and its practitioners who mostly claim to embrace conservative and traditional and moral values, should not the standard be what is just?”
The Billion-Dollar Ponzi Scheme that Hooked Warren Buffett and the U.S. Treasury: How a small-town auto mechanic peddling a green-energy breakthrough pulled off a massive scam, Ariel Sabar, Atlantic, 5/8/23
"Women's Bill of Rights" created by secretive group that opposes women's rights, Rebecca Crosby, Tesnim Zekeria, Popular Information, 5/10/23: “Since as early as 1998, IWF has received extensive funding from non-profit groups controlled by right-wing billionaire and Koch Industries CEO Charles Koch.”
War and politics: Why what happens in Bakhmut matters in Russia, Timothy Snyder, Thinking About, 5/12/23: “ Putin is not fighting the war he imagined, nor should we be. He is now embedded in a politics he did not anticipate.”
Protests are altering Israel’s trajectory, says Handmaid’s writer Margaret Atwood: ‘The king’ knows that ‘an awful lot of people think what he is doing is wrong’: At Jerusalem Writers Festival, Canadian author talks judicial reform, Handmaid’s Tale, NetanJessica Steinberg, Times of Israel, 5/8/23
Biden Anxiety: Though the public thinks he’s too old to serve a second term, Joe Biden keeps getting older. What should the Democrats do?, Harold Meyerson, American Prospect, 5/9/23
Making love with you
Has left me peaceful, warm, and tired
What more could I ask
There's nothing left to be desired
Peace came upon me and it leaves me weak
So sleep, silent angel
Go to sleep
—from “The Air that I Breathe,” The Hollies, by Mike Hazlewood/Albert Hammond
Science, Technology & Environment
Recycling plants spew a staggering amount of microplastics: For the tiny amount of waste that ends up recycled, a new pollution problem arises, Andrew Paul, Popular Science, 5/8/23
Seaflooding: The Surprising Solution to Mitigate Climate Change, Create More Life, and Grow the Economy, Tomas Pueyo, Uncharted Territories, 5/9/23. Ed. Note: Might seem crazy but this is a really amazing concept worth looking at.
Climate change and droughts: What’s the connection? As average temperatures continue to climb, drought has become a permanent part of our vocabulary, Tiffany Means, Yale Climate Connections, 5/11/23
More Frequent Dust Storms Could Be in Our Future: A combination of climate change and unsustainable agricultural practices could lead to Dust Bowl–like conditions, Christian Elliott, Scientific American, 5/10/23
How an explosion in urban beekeeping coincided with a decline in wild pollinators: "Just as we wouldn’t advocate keeping backyard chickens to save the birds, we shouldn’t look to beekeeping to save the bees,” say researchers, Warren Cornwall, Anthropocene, 5/10/23
Flood insurance rates will soar in some areas, FEMA says, Thomas Frank, E&E News, 5/10/23: “…increasing risk means increasing rates.”
The Superbloom Is a Glimpse of California’s Past: This year’s rains reversed, temporarily, more than a decade of catastrophic drought. Some of the seeds that caused the bloom have lain dormant for years, Dana Goodyear, Photography by Ioulex, New Yorker, 5/12/23
Everyone Was Wrong About Reverse Osmosis—Until Now: A new paper showing how water actually travels through a plastic membrane could make desalination more efficient. That’s good news for a thirsty world, Max G. Levy, Wired, 5/8/23
The Filmmakers Who Voyaged Inside the Body: For more than a decade, two “recovering” anthropologists have brought documentary closer to the human experience. Now they’ve made the camera part of our flesh and blood, Alexandra Schwartz, New Yorker, 5/8/23
Aruba Considers Enshrining the ‘Rights of Nature’ in Its Constitution: If lawmakers and the Kingdom of the Netherlands sign off, the ecologically rich island would become the second country to recognize that nature has inherent legal rights, Katie Surma, Inside Climate News, 5/10/23
Physicists Create Elusive Particles That Remember Their Pasts: In two landmark experiments, researchers used quantum processors to engineer exotic particles that have captivated physicists for decades. The work is a step toward crash-proof quantum computers, Charlie Wood, Quanta, 5/9/23
i have found my shortcuts
and landmarks
to place
where i first took form
in the field
—from “the poem is a dream telling you its time,” Marwa Helal
Health & Wellness
The Surprising Synergy Between Acupuncture and AI: Now that I work in machine learning, I’m often struck by the parallels between this cutting-edge technology and traditional Chinese medicine, Saffron Huang, Wired, 5/11/23
Completely new mechanism behind some cancers discovered, Michael Irving, New Atlas, 5/9/23: “…scientists have discovered a cancer-causing mechanism that has never been seen before – a kind of clog in a cellular garbage disposal system.”
New Book Looks at Cancer Prevention Through Reducing Our Exposure to Chemicals, Kara Holsopple, Allegheny Front, 5/10/23. Book: A New War on Cancer: The Unlikely Heroes Revolutionizing Prevention
FDA panel votes in favor of the first over-the-counter birth control pill, Ed Silverman, STAT, 5/10/23
O white-armed one, grant this blessing on my head on this propitious, sacred day, that this life may be spent in thy worship, Mother
—from “Basanta Panchami” by Pankajini Basu, tr. By Lillian M. Whitehouse
Birds
Shrinking bodies, growing wings: Climate change having odd effect on birds, study finds, Doyle Rice, USA TODAY, 5/8/23
This AI-Powered Feeder Takes Ridiculously Cool Photos of Birds in Your Backyard: Bird Buddy is the Ring of the winged world, capturing candid pictures of our feathered friends and identifying their species, Jonathan Small, Entrepreneur, 5/9/23
Lesser Prairie-Chickens: A slap in the face on the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act, Laura Erickson, For the Birds, 5/11/23: “The kind of management tools Richard Nixon envisioned so we could “act early enough” to save a vanishing species failed in 1973 when the Lesser Prairie-Chicken wasn’t listed in the first place, failed in the subsequent 42 years when it still wasn’t listed, and failed in 2015 thanks to that politically appointed judge ignoring the science and the Endangered Species Act’s mandate.”
I tend to ignore manufactured holidays like Mother’s Day. Aside from supporting the flower industry, why do we need to choose a single day to honor, think about, believe in, and care for mothers? Or a month from now, fathers? If you choose to participate, that’s your business, and I certainly wish you well. But maybe instead of Mother’s Day, we should re-christen it as Choice Day and celebrate it for all women everywhere. It’s your body, your life: we honor all women, and not just today either.
There’s alot going on, and alot to be concerned about. And to be hopeful about as well. We’re thinking alot about impending Supreme Court decisions, and the zoo in Congress right now.
Stay vigilant, stay strong, stay well. And please do keep in touch, it’s great to hear from you; thanks to those who wrote this week. Much love to all. —David