The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Space
The Weird Times Issue 23 October 18, 2020
And will there be men to come who will remember
the Devil's legions had their votes, ward-workers, enthusiasts, willing
agents? And there came the amateurs of Hell, the volunteer demons
hungry for the look of fear their eyes would
feed upon, men devourd by hatred devouring hatred.
—Robert Duncan, TRIBUNALS, 1970
"I'm no longer accepting the things I cannot change ---
I'm changing the things I cannot accept."
—Angela Davis
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And a nation grounded in fiction, rather than reality, cannot function.
—Heather Cox Richardson
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Donald Trump Has At Least $1 Billion In Debt, More Than Twice the Amount He Suggested —Dan Alexander, Forbes, Oct 16, 2020
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This Overlooked Variable Is the Key to the Pandemic--It’s not R, Zeynep Tufekci, The Atlantic, September 30, 2020
“By now many people have heard about R0—the basic reproductive number of a pathogen, a measure of its contagiousness on average. But unless you’ve been reading scientific journals, you’re less likely to have encountered k, the measure of its dispersion. The definition of k is a mouthful, but it’s simply a way of asking whether a virus spreads in a steady manner or in big bursts, whereby one person infects many, all at once. After nine months of collecting epidemiological data, we know that this is an overdispersed pathogen, meaning that it tends to spread in clusters, but this knowledge has not yet fully entered our way of thinking about the pandemic—or our preventive practices.”
As Covid cases surge, more public-health experts say lockdowns aren’t the answer.
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AOC’s Message from the Future
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A fracking binge in the American shale industry has permanently damaged the country’s oil and gas reserves, threatening hopes for a production recovery and US energy independence, according to one of the sector’s top investors. Wil VanLoh, chief executive of Quantum Energy Partners, a private equity firm that through its portfolio companies is the biggest US driller after ExxonMobil, said too much fracking had “sterilized a lot of the reservoir in North America”. “That’s the dirty secret about shale,” Mr VanLoh told the Financial Times, noting wells had often been drilled too closely to one another. “What we’ve done for the last five years is we’ve drilled the heart out of the watermelon.” Financial Times (behind paywall)
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Visiting National Parks While Native, Emily Bowen Cohen, Jewish Book Council, October 12, 2020
Do We Live in a Simulation? Chances are about 50/50 —Anil Anansathwamy, Scientific American, Oct 13 2020.
“the posterior probability that we are living in base reality is almost the same as the posterior probability that we are a simulation—with the odds tilting in favor of base reality by just a smidgen.”
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Achieving herd immunity by allowing millions of people to sicken and many to die is a ridiculous idea only attractive to lunatics like DJT and crazed libertarians. It’s worse than Social Darwinism and reflects a long theme in American culture of not caring about other people. Rugged Individualism is a romantic fiction, and herd immunity is just another version of its utter depravity.
Total deaths recorded during the pandemic far exceed those attributed to COVID-19, new data show -- States that reopened sooner, such as Texas, Arizona and Florida, experienced summer surges, report says — Science Daily, Oct 12, 2020
For every two deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the U.S., a third American dies as a result of the pandemic, according to new data publishing Oct. 12 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"Contrary to skeptics who claim that COVID-19 deaths are fake or that the numbers are much smaller than we hear on the news, our research and many other studies on the same subject show quite the opposite," said lead author Steven Woolf, M.D., director emeritus of VCU's Center on Society and Health.
The study also contains suggestive evidence that state policies on reopening early in April and May may have fueled the surges experienced in June and July.
Woolf looked at what are called “excess deaths” from March through July, that is, the increase over the average number of deaths expected in those months. He found 225,530 excess deaths. Sixty-seven percent of those deaths are linked directly to Covid-19, but the remaining 33% are unexplained, suggesting this unusual spike is related to the pandemic.
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Countries across the world are reliant on a range of services that are based around their natural ecosystems. Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (BES) include such necessities as food provision, water security and regulation of air quality that are vital to maintaining the health and stability of communities and economies. Over half (55%) of global GDP, equal to $41.7 trillion, is dependent on high-functioning biodiversity and ecosystem services. However, a staggering fifth of countries globally (20%) are at risk of their ecosystems collapsing due to a decline in biodiversity and related beneficial services, reveals a new study by Swiss Re Institute.
The American Booksellers Association surveyed members in July and among the approximately 400 respondents, a third said their sales were down 40 percent or more for the year. That 40 percent is in line with what Vroman's in Los Angeles told customers when appealing for help to survive.
Twenty-six percent indicated sales were flat, or even up. But ABA ceo Allison Hill "said she expects that positive number to have eroded" when they repeat the survey in January. And "even at stores where sales have held on, profits are often down, Ms. Hill said."
McNally Jackson Books owner Sarah McNally calls her sales "unimaginably bad." The paper notes, "All six shops combined are now bringing in less than its SoHo location would in a typical month." Owner of Third Place Books in the Seattle area Robert Sindelar says he is happy with sales that are down about 20 percent for the year.—Publishers Marketplace, October 15, 2020
I have not mentioned the book business in The Weird Times, as its issues pale by comparison to the challenges facing us in politics, climate and economics. But it’s pretty clear that independent bookstores (and for that matter, all bricks and mortar booksellers) are on the verge of calamity in this pandemic.
By this time next year, we may have fewer than 300 viable independent bookstores in the entire country, while the remaining bookstores chains will be struggling to survive. With college enrollment down 16% this fall, and likely more by next year, we can expect the demise of many colleges and universities along with their bookstores too.
What this means for the health of our culture and democracy is impossible to fathom.
Record-Breaking Bird Just Flew Nonstop from Alaska to New Zealand - George Dvorsky, Gizmodo, Oct 15, 2020
A conservation group has tracked a migration for the ages, in which a male bar-tailed godwit flew from Alaska to New Zealand without taking a single break.
Bar-tailed godwits looking to relocate from Alaska to New Zealand must make an epic flight over the Pacific Ocean. For 4BBRW, this resulted in a record-breaking nonstop flight, in which the bird flew 7,987 miles (12,854 km), reports the Guardian. The bird was equipped with a 5gm satellite tag, which allowed for GPS tracking. The scientists said the total length of the journey is probably closer to 7,581 miles (12,200 km) after accounting for rounding errors. (Godwit photo by JJ Harrison)
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It probably doesn’t matter much that during her confirmation hearing this week Amy Coney Barrett couldn’t remember the First Amendment. After all, there’s got to be a copy in the Supreme Court if somebody wants to check it out just for old time’s sake. But I was perturbed by Barrett’s description of the fundamental act of reading. Sen. Lindsey Graham, still glowing from his latest feat of moral origami, asked the nominee to explain what she meant by calling herself “an originalist.” Barrett replied: “That means that I interpret the Constitution as a law, that I interpret its text as text, and I understand it to have the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it. So that meaning doesn’t change over time. And it’s not up to me to update it or infuse my own policy views into it.”
So reasonable sounding — but alas, so fallacious, as the clever jurist must know. Barrett cannot seriously distinguish her approach to the Constitution by claiming, “I interpret its text as text.” How else, after all, could anyone interpret its text? As dance? As sculpture? And what are we to make of her professed reverence for “the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it”? Barrett’s description, popular among wistful conservatives, assumes that the meaning of the Constitution was once self-evident, stable and universally agreed upon. But none of those conditions is or was ever true. When we read, we can’t exclude the subjective act of interpretation because that’s what reading is. In Barrett’s fantastical framing, the judge’s role is merely to open the Constitution like a metal box and remove the immutable gold coins stored within. If language were such a system, we wouldn’t have to interpret it, and we wouldn’t need judges. We would merely carry things around and hold them up: “rock,” “egg,” “chair.” Originalism is just a slick rhetorical maneuver to privilege one’s own views as objectively primary. To use a technical legal term: That's poppycock. —Ron Charles, Washington Post Book Report, Oct 16, 2020
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My neighbor is digging a well in the backyard
While I stumble around looking for a light upstairs
And I cant help but wonder if this is all I am good for
If its all that I am if its my only prayer then
How far tell me, will faith get me
When the well is almost dry
How far tell me, will faith get me
When the well is, well well well
Oh, Saint Lucy
I cant find the place where I need to be
Oh, Saint Lucy
Lend your eyes, to me
Saint Lucy, Catie Curtis
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This is the best story of the week.
I Miss Restaurants, So I Opened My Own…for a Chipmunk —Angela Hansberger, Bon Appetit, Oct 15, 2020
The existential dread of a global pandemic is pervasive. I find myself often caught in a state of hopelessness and helplessness, unable to celebrate newborn babies, birthdays, graduations, and marriages. Unable to properly grieve losses or sit with a close friend undergoing chemo. Worried about the chefs and restaurant workers who rely on our collective ability to go out to eat. News is bleak and we are all feeling physically and socially isolated. But every day, there is also Thelonious, a chipmunk who sits down to eat in a world without a doomful election and a deadly virus. This is how I am coping, laying out a picnic, watching tiny hands hold my tiny food. It’s silly, yes, but sometimes silliness is needed.
The evening Thelonious dined with a white tablecloth, a battery-lit candle, and petite silver dinnerware was the best restaurant experience I’ve had in months. I sat behind my window—next to my eternally frustrated cat—and marveled as the chipmunk prepared his to-go order, stuffing nut after nut into his impressively expanding cheek pouches. It made me feel hopeful, knowing his face luggage would carry these supplies into his own little subterranean pantry. Knowing that, come winter, they would get him through his own period of isolation.
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The Arctic is Dying, Agence France-Presse, Oct 12, 2020
Researchers on the world’s biggest mission to the North Pole are returning to dock on Monday, bringing home devastating proof of a dying Arctic Ocean and warnings of ice-free summers in just decades. “At the North Pole itself, we found badly eroded, melted, thin and brittle ice.”
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Forming a “More Perfect Union” Through Indigenous Values —Sandy Bigtree and Philip P. Arnold, Orion Magazine, September, 2020
Relationship with the natural world—reengagement with the life force of this planet—occurs, to the Haudenosaunee, through the women who are life-givers. This matrilineal clan system is the oldest participatory form of democracy recognized in the world today. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy Grand Council still meets, as it did thousands of years ago, at its capital and place of origin—the Onondaga Nation longhouse. Onondaga remains the heart and Central Fire of what is now six confederated nations: Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Tuscarora, and Seneca…
As we are now confronted with environmental devastation, global pandemics, an economic system that fosters chaos in the world, and an inability to think clearly or collectively toward a viable way to the future, perhaps it is time to pick up where the Founding Fathers left off and continue to learn from the Haudenosaunee. What better time than now to consider the ancient wisdom of our ancestors who, for thousands of years, sustained a more equitable way of living in proper relationship with the natural world? Who better to model a world where women reside at the center of deliberations and nature exists as our relative—not just a resource?
Skä·noñh,
The Best Birdhouses, According to Birders, Chloe Anello, The New Yorker, Oct 9, 2020
Bonus for the backyard birder: In the Hudson Valley, where birding is not just a hobby but a way of life, almost everyone keeps birdhouses in their yards. But not all birdhouses are created equally — and in fact, the most beautiful ones on the market might not actually be conducive to attracting birds. New York Magazine spoke to six birders, all of whom emphasized that you shouldn’t buy a birdhouse just because it catches your eye. You’re looking for a birdhouse — or “nest boxes” as many of our birders call them — there are plenty of nice looking, expert-recommended options, plus some tips to help you shop for one that will safely house birds native to your area and keep the ecosystem around you intact.
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An earlier universe existed before the Big Bang, and can still be observed today, says Nobel winner - Sir Roger Penrose: 'The Big Bang was not the beginning. There was something before, and that something is what we will have in our future' —Sarah Knapton, The Telegraph, Oct 6, 2020. Full article behind paywall though.
An earlier universe existed before the Big Bang and can still be observed today, Sir Roger Penrose has said, as he received the Nobel Prize for Physics. Sir Roger, 89, who won the honor for his seminal work proving that black holes exist, said he had found six ‘warm’ points in the sky (dubbed ‘Hawking Points’) which are around eight times the diameter of the Moon. They are named after Professor Stephen Hawking, who theorized that black holes ‘leak’ radiation and eventually evaporate away entirely. The timescale for the complete evaporation of a black hole is huge, possibly longer than the age of our current universe, making them impossible to detect. However, Sir Roger believes that ‘dead’ black holes from earlier universes or ‘aeons’ are observable now. If true, it would prove Hawking’s theories were correct.
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A new coronavirus fear? Strain seen in swine has potential to jump to humans, UNC finds, —Martha Quillin, Charlotte News & Observer,, October 16, 2020
An emerging coronavirus strain that causes gastrointestinal illness in swine could wreck the pork industry and has the potential to jump species and infect humans, a University of North Carolina study has found.
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You might need somethin' to hold on to
When all the answers they don't amount to much
Somebody that you can just talk to
And a little of that human touch
Baby in a world without pity
Do you think what I'm askin's too much ?
I just want to feel you in my arms
And share a little of that human touch...
-The Human Touch, Bruce Springsteen
I recently interviewed the brilliant and compassionate Dr. Victor Montori about his newly reprinted book, The Patient Revolution. In it, Dr. Montori points out that our medical/healthcare system makes doctors and patients accountable for “delivering care” instead of systematically supporting the work of caring. Our emphasis on efficiency requires the health care system to process instead of care for people. And that the emphasis on standardizing diagnosis and treatment alike disables the core caring relationship between doctors and other caregivers and the patient. As Montori puts it, the system “offers care for people like you instead of care for you.”
The book proposes that we build a health care system that is based not on greed but on solidarity – this is the revolutionary idea at the core of the book, one that is for me and many others incredibly energizing and moving. Listen to the interview at Writerscast (or Stitcher or your favorite podcast app).
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Now when it drops, drop
Feel it
You make the wrong move
Now when it drops, drop
You gonna feel it
That you've been it doin' wrong
I said, pressure drop
Oh pressure, oh yeah
Pressure's gonna drop on you
Pressure drop
Oh pressure, oh yeah
Pressure's gonna drop on you
Pressure Drop, Toots & the Maytals, written by Frederick Hibbert
There are so many roots to the tree of anger
that sometimes the branches shatter
before they bear.
—Audre Lorde
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It’s been another busy, crazy week. I couldn’t make it through without my friends and family’s support. Thank you all.
