The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces
The Weird Times: Issue 109, June 12, 2022 (V3 #5)
“Citizens have much more time and knowledge than all the lawmakers in the world combined. What we’re missing today is a mechanism to harness the time and knowledge of broader society to make laws.”—Thomas Pueyo
“We are in the same tent as the clowns and the freaks—that's show business.”—Edward R. Murrow
“I keep thinking we’ve reached peak absurdity with our book-banning craze, but every month America outdoes itself.”—Ron Charles, Washington Post
One of these days the ground will drop out from beneath your feet
One of these days your heart will stop and play it's final beat
One of these days the clocks will stop and time won't mean a thing
One of these days their bombs will drop and silence everything
—from “These Days,” Foo Fighters, written by Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins
Politics and Money
Why Do Democrats Suck at Messaging? It’s a question Dan Pfeiffer, the former Obama communications director and Pod Save America cohost, recalls getting many times. In his new book, Battling the Big Lie, Pfeiffer diagnoses the party’s messaging troubles—and calls for building a bigger megaphone, Dan Pfeiffer, Vanity Fair, 6/6/22
January 6 Is a Dangerous Shorthand: Just as Watergate was not only about the Watergate break-in, January 6 shouldn’t come to stand only for the events of that date, Grant Tudor, The Atlantic, 6/8/22
Wage gap between CEOs and US workers jumped to 670-to-1 last year, study finds: Report on 300 top US companies found CEOs making an average of $10.6m, with the median worker getting $23,968, Dominic Rushe, The Guardian, 6/7/22
How CEOs cashed in on 2021, Judd Legum, Popular Information, 6/7/22: “A Harvard Business School study found “companies with overpaid CEOs and underpaid workers see significantly higher levels of employee dissatisfaction and turnover, as well as lower sales.””
American Rasputin: Steve Bannon is still scheming. And he’s still a threat to democracy, Jennifer Senior, Atlantic, 6/6/22: “But Bannon is more than just a broadcaster. He’s a televangelist, an Iago, a canny political operative with activist machinations.”
Sara Nelson on the Drive to Unionize Delta Flight Attendants, Podcast with David Remnick, New Yorker, 6/6/22: “Nelson speaks about the push to unionize the flight attendants of Delta Air Lines, which—if successful—would be one of the largest union wins in recent history, covering almost twenty-four thousand workers.”
Of, by, and for the billionaires, Judd Legum, Sara Crosby, Popular Information, 6/7/22: “a growing trend of Republican elected officials using the power of the state to reward perceived allies and punish enemies.”
Matthew McConaughey Makes Impassioned Gun-Reform Speech From White House: After spending about a week in his hometown of Uvalde, Texas, following the Robb Elementary School shooting, the actor eulogized several of the victims and shared pictures of their artwork during his emotional 20-minute plea, Savannah Walsh, Vanity Fair, 6/7/22
The year we all became reactionaries: I did not become a reactionary, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 6/8/22: “I predict that this reactionary moment will come to an end soon — specifically, after the midterm elections this November. The reason is that Republicans are highly likely to win those midterms and retake control of at least one house of Congress.”
The Kavanaugh threat exposed weaknesses in judicial security — and our discourse, Ruth Marcus, Washington Post, 6/9/22
Legal claims shed light on founder of faith group tied to Amy Coney Barrett: Examination of People of Praise comes as supreme court seems poised to reverse Roe v Wade, Stephanie Kirchgaessner, The Guardian, 6/6/22: “Barrett has said that her religious convictions, including her previously stated views opposing Roe v Wade, had no bearing on her role as a judge and would not affect her impartiality.) Ed. Note: yeah, sure.
How Republicans pass abortion bans most Americans don’t want: Legalized abortion in some form is widely supported, but gerrymandered districts allow politicians to push extreme measures through, Sam Levine, The Guardian, 6/8/22
The Democracy of the Future: What do these have in common: Elon’s Twitter, Venetian Bonds, General von Moltke’s strategy, AI, stock markets, prediction markets, and the Internet? Thomas Pueyo, Uncharted Territories, 6/7/22: “We don’t realize what alternatives to democracy will emerge because we’re submerged in the current system.”
Discarding Legal Precedent to Control Women's Reproductive Rights is Rooted in Colonial Slavery, Clyde W. Ford, History News Network, 6/5/22
The Janes Reminds Us of the Horrors of Criminalized Abortion: “It’s so inconceivable that we’re back here again,” says Emma Pildes, codirector of HBO’s new documentary about a group of Chicago women who secretly facilitated safe abortions in the late ’60s and early ’70s. “How many people are going to die?” Julie Miller, Vanity Fair, 6/8/22
How Mexican feminists are helping Americans get abortions: Latin American groups are sharing their abortion access models with US activists in as Roe v Wade stands to be overturned, Cecilia Nowell, The Guardian, 6/10/22
Doubt is their product: How Big Tobacco, Big Oil, and the Gun Lobby market ignorance: Gun, fossil fuel, and tobacco industries all use a similar playbook to promote their harmful products—to convince people that the truth can’t be known, delaying policy action, Aaron Huertas, Fast Company, 6/8/22
Big Tech Has Become a Creature of the Swamp: Plus: Time travel on the blockchain, an update on apocalyptic horsemen, and '90s-era squabbles over internet regulation, Steven Levy, Wired, 6/10/22
Citizenship and Smartphones, Mark Hurst, Creative Good, 6/10/22: “Do we know what citizenship means, what it requires? Do we know how to foster healthy communities, or have we given up? Is our answer just to try to forget, to ignore what’s happening, to relax into the numbing distractions of the smartphone screen?”
The Theft of the Commons: Across centuries, land that was collectively worked by the landless was claimed by the landed, and the age of private property was born, Eula Biss, New Yorker, 6/8/22
Still Warring
U.S. pundits: Please stop trying to concede on Ukraine's behalf: There's every reason to keep backing Ukraine, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 6/9/22
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 9, Karolina Hird, Kateryna Stepanenko, Mason Clark, UnderstandingWar.org: “efforts to consolidate governmental control of occupied areas through the direct installation of Russian leadership is a major indicator that the Kremlin is attempting to unify efforts to annex occupied regions directly into the Russian Federation.”
Elon Musk’s Starlink has ‘destroyed’ Russian information campaign in Ukraine: The satellite service is helping coordinate and launch Ukraine's attacks and connect it with the world, Ameya Paleya, Interesting Engineering, 6/10/22
Science and Environment
Five planets are aligned in night sky for first time in 18 years: Throughout June, you can see Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn in a row with your naked eye, Kasha Patel, Washington Post, 6/7/22
An electric aircraft just completed a journey of 1,403 miles: The plane from Beta Technologies began its travels in New York and flew all the way to Arkansas, making seven stops along the way and spanning six states, Rob Verger, PopSci, 6/2/22
The Next Challenge for Solid-State Batteries? Making Lots of Them: Startups like Solid Power are beginning to roll out solid-state batteries that meet the needs of EVs. But hurdles remain for manufacturing them at scale, Gregory Barber, Wired, 6/6/22
Solution or Band-Aid? Carbon Capture Projects Are Moving Ahead: Long discussed but rarely used, carbon capture and storage projects — which bury waste CO2 underground — are on the rise globally. Some scientists see the technology as a necessary tool in reducing emissions, but others say it simply perpetuates the burning of fossil fuels, Nicola Jones, Yale Environment 360, 6/7/22
Inside Clean Energy: Solid-State Batteries for EVs Make a Leap Toward Mass Production: Colorado-based Solid Power has begun rolling out batteries that will enable electric cars to run much longer on a charge. Meanwhile, Houston researchers announced progress on a solid-state battery for energy storage, Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News, 6/9/22
Plastic has seeped into every aspect of our existence. Can we live without it? Kelly Oakes, BBC, 6/7/22
First Nation reclaims territory by declaring Indigenous protected area in Canada, Erica Gies, MongaBay, 6/6/22
Water Gap: Most Indian reservations do not have enforceable water quality standards — a regulatory hole that leaves tribes vulnerable to serious environmental pollution, Jack Darrell, Earth Island, Summer 2022 issue
Genetic data indicate at least two separate monkeypox outbreaks underway, suggesting wider spread, Helen Branswell, STAT, 6/3/22
This Nerve Influences Nearly Every Internal Organ: Can it Improve Our Mental State Too? On social media, exercises that aim to “tone” one of our body’s longest nerves have been touted as a cure-all for anxiety and other psychological ailments. Here’s what the research says, Christina Caron, NY Times, 6/2/22 (gift article)
A turning point in cancer: A cluster of "un-heard of" results in multiple subtypes of advanced cancer, Eric Topol, Ground Truths, 6/10/22: “This represents the essence of individualized medicine, whereby understanding the unique biologic basis of a person’s cancer can lead to highly accurate and effective treatment, and also avoid the toxicity of classical chemotherapeutic agents.”
Mathematicians Transcend a Geometric Theory of Motion: More than 30 years ago, Andreas Floer changed geometry. Now, two mathematicians have finally figured out how to extend his revolutionary perspective, Kelsey Houston-Edwards, Wired, 6/5/22
Magnetic Microbes Are Thriving in the Mariana Trench: Closely studying these magnetic foraminifera could lead to new insights about the evolution of magnetic life, Fanny Szakal, Hakai, 6/9/22
The Strange and Secret Ways That Animals Perceive the World: Nonhuman creatures have senses that we’re just beginning to fathom. What would they tell us if we could only understand them? Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker, 6/6/22
As Animals Migrate Because of Climate Change, Thousands of New Viruses Will Hop From Wildlife to Humans—and Mitigation Won’t Stop Them: “We can’t put this one back in the bottle,” said the researcher behind a recent study about the spread of zoonotic diseases, Victoria St. Martin, Inside Climate News, 6/7/22
Our entire civilisation depends on animals. It’s time we recognised their true value: We must restore our largely broken relationship with nature if we are to ensure the planet’s future – and our own, Tony Juniper, The Guardian, 6/9/22
Meet Fernanda, the giant tortoise that brought an entire species back to life: Discovery of the ‘fantastic giant tortoise’ delights experts after the animals were considered extinct for more than a century, Sarah Knapton, The Daily Telegraph, 6/9/22
Wrong Turn: America’s Car Culture and the Road Not Taken: With its highways and suburbs, modern America was built around the automobile and powered by fossil fuels. The oil crises of the 1970s provided an opportunity to change course and move to renewable energy, but any momentum achieved then proved to be very short-lived, Bill McKibben, Yale Environment 360, 6/9/22
Sonic Fireflies
the beauty of jazz & blues voices,
syncopation of syllables flowing
free form through improvising sentences
sluicing, embracing, metaphors glowing
eyes in the dark are words imitating
fireflies pulsating bright in a black sky
are gleaming eyes of a prowling black panther
suddenly clicking on bright as flashlight beams
under moon rays probing hidden places
isolated mysterious somewhere
deep in a buzzing alive countryside
—Quincy Troupe
Birdsong
A Wild Hope: Two decades after it disappeared in nature, the stunning blue Spix’s macaw will be reintroduced to its forest home, Kai Kupferschmidt, Science, 6/9/22
New England's birdsong is getting quieter. A scientist is trying to reconstruct those lost soundscapes, Walter Wuthmann, WBUR, 6/10/22
Reshuffled Rivers Bolster the Amazon’s Hyper-Biodiversity: The lush biodiversity of the Amazon may be due in part to the dynamics of branching rivers, which serve as invisible fences that continuously barricade and merge bird populations, Yasmin Saplakoglu, Quanta, 6/8/22
Grasslands worth millions to beekeepers, invaluable to birds: Study Quantifies Value of Grassland Bird Habitat in Dakotas, Communications and Publishing, USGS, 6/7/22
Chinese pond heron spotted in Nepal for first time, Abhaya Raj Joshi, MongaBay, 6/10/22
I'd like to lay my weary bones tonight
On a bed of California stars
I'd love to feel your hand touching mine
And tell me why I must keep working on
—From “California Stars,” Billy Bragg & Wilco, by Woody Guthrie, Jeffrey Scott Tweedy, Jay W. Bennett
Books and Culture
IT’S NOT TOO LATE (COME JOIN US) Facts. Connection. Action. The Carbon Almanac is a powerful tool to help us create change, right here and right now—Seth Godin
War rap: In Ukraine, an angry voice for a furious generation, John Leicester, AP, 6/9/22: “Russian soldiers drink vodka, we are making music…”
Edward Koren’s “Out with the Old” The artist reflects on sixty years at the magazine, Françoise Mouly, New Yorker, 6/6/22
“A Catastrophic Loss of Faith in America” An Interview with Pankaj Mishra, Rebecca Panovka, Kiara Barrow, The Drift, 6/8/22: “However strange it may seem, I’ve never been more hopeful than at this moment of total despair.”
Writing Toward a Definition of Indigenous Futurism: “Stories, like all language, have power,” Chelsea Vowel, LitHub, 6/10/22: “I wish to extend Métis existence beyond official narratives, beyond current constraints, and imagine what living in a “Métis way” could look like in spaces and times we haven’t (yet) been.”
“Poetry Is a Superpower”: Edward Vidaurre and FlowerSong Press, Dick Cluster, LA Review of Books, 6/8/22: “We are literary, lyrical, and boundless, and we welcome allies that understand and join in the voice of people of color and our struggle, truth, and hope.”
MUST READ ARTICLE: In your own time: how to live for today the philosophical way: What’s gone is gone, but don’t waste time worrying about that. Or on what comes next. The ideal way to age is to be in the moment, Oliver Burkeman, The Guardian, 6/10/22
The Age of Acceleration: Humans have long shaped the state of the planet. The question is: are we hurtling toward an ecological future that's completely new? Meehan Crist, Orion Magazine, Summer 2022: “to not push forward in the hopes that technical innovation will someday dissolve all boundaries for good, but to imagine new systems and new possibilities for human flourishing in an already unrecognizable and increasingly unstable world.”
Poetry Out Loud: Mia Ronn recites “the world is about to end and my grandparents are in love” by Kara Jackson (Mia Ronn is a high school junior in Los Angeles; she won the Poetry Out Loud national championship last week.)
“and i’m afraid the sun is my soulmate,
that waste waits for a wet kiss,
carbon calls me pretty, and i think
death is a good first date.”
“The mode of locomotion should be slow, the slower the better, and be often interrupted by leisurely halts to sit on vantage points and stop at question marks.”—Carl Sauer
“The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.” —Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
“Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness.”—Anne Frank (born on June 12, 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany.)
“We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.”—R. Buckminster Fuller
We honor those who have gone before us by not giving up on the future. Much love to all of you in these perilous times. Keep in touch. We need each other more than ever. —David