The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 268, June 29, 2025 (V6 #8)
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’.—Isaac Asimov (Newsweek, 1980)
Books, Music, Art, Culture
A Writer Responds To Her Own Book-Banning, Kathie Giorgio, Writers for Democratic Action, 6/24/25: “Book-bannings just happen, often, as was the case in my school in 2023, without warning or discussion. One person complains, and a writer’s body of work disappears.”
Anselm Berrigan Reflects On His Mother Alice Notley’s Life and Legacy, Juliette Jeffers, Interview, 6/20/25: “She was definitely not didactic in her writing. She was very fierce in her opinions and things, but she was not reactive.”
Proust’s Jewish Question: The debate over Proust’s relation to his Jewish identity ultimately turns not just on his personal attachments but on how he represents Jewish characters in his novel, Maurice Samuels, NY Review of Books, 6/26/25 issue
How Amaranth Influenced Indigenous Culture and Cooking in the American Southwest: the History and Legacy of Pueblo Cuisine in New Mexico, Michael Shaikh, LitHub, 6/25/25: “At the heart of its culinary philosophy is the belief that people are within and part of their ecosystem, not separate from it.” Book: The Last Sweet Bite: Stories and Recipes of Culinary Heritage Lost and Found
This Queer Online Zine Can Only Be Read Via an Ancient Internet Protocol, Janus Rose, 404 Media, 6/25/25: “New Session intentionally embraces this slower pace, making it more like light-interactive fiction than a computer game.”
How New York City Got Its First Pride March: What started as a response to the 1969 Stonewall Uprising has evolved and expanded, taking on an added urgency amid Trump’s ongoing attacks on LGBTQ+ people, Maya Pontone, Hyperallergic, 6/26/25: “’Say it clear, say it loud: Gay is good, gay is proud!’ participants chanted on Sunday, June 28, 1970.”
Self-censorship and the ‘spiral of silence’: Why Americans are less likely to publicly voice their opinions on political issues, James L. Gibson, The Conversation, 6/26/25
Heat Exhaustion: A spark of hope in a limbo that feels like hell, Sarah Kendzior, Newsletter, 6/27/25: “People fear a system crashing down because they don’t understand that it already happened and they’ve been living in wreckage sold to them as privilege.”
Uncovering an Archaeology of U.S. Empire in Panama: An anthropologist investigates how archaeology helped the U.S. colonize the Panama Canal Zone—just as the current U.S. government threatens to retake it, Charlotte Williams, Sapiens, 6/26/25: “By tracing how archaeological objects were taken from their contexts, and where they traveled, we can start to understand how U.S. imperialism jumbles historical landscapes—and contemporary ones.”
A Great and Good Man: On the passing of Bill Moyers, Bill McKibben, Crucial Years, 6/27/25: “Bill Moyers was the pre-eminent interviewer of his time because he was so good at listening.”
Barbados poet laureate on mission to share stories of enslavement: Esther Phillips says her poetry’s ‘ultimate goal’ is to achieve justice for those who suffered at hands of European colonisers, Natricia Duncan, The Guardian, 6/23/25
She must not fetter her son with tenderness.
So she flexes his feet and ankles
to bear the weight of ball and chain;
rubs her calloused hands down the soft skin
of his back to ready him for whippings that will come.
She lets the weight of her arms fall heavy on his neck
as she hugs him; a yoke may be the collar he will wear
—from “Hard Love,” Esther Phillips
Politics, Economics, Technology
A remarkable message: You need to read this, Robert Reich, Newsletter, 6/23/25. (DW: here is a snippet. Please click through to read the post—an urgent message to Democratic leadership.)
If the federal government is hijacked, build power underneath it. If the laws become tools of oppression, help people resist them legally, locally, and boldly. This is not campaign season — this is an authoritarian purge. Stop campaigning. Act like this is the end of democracy, because it is. We don’t need more slogans. We need survival manuals. Stop being scared to fight dirty when the other side is fighting to erase the damn Constitution.
We are so fucked, Lucian K. Truscott IV, Newsletter, 6/27/25: “The Supreme Leader’s Supreme Court boosted his Supreme Powers this morning by handing down yet another 6-3 decision in his favor. This time the case involved Trump’s executive order violating the Constitution by cancelling the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship.”
Don’t let this happen to us: The “Spiral of Silence” is invading America…Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 6/28/25: “The “Spiral of Silence” is...what happens when a political party constantly goes on the attack and characterizes its opponents as evil, enemies of the people, and less-than-human (“scum”) so people simply stop discussing politics....it makes it far easier for dictators and authoritarians to do their dirty work. So…keep speaking up!”
How do we resist and rise? We have to believe the impossible is possible: Every action matters now. Every effort small or large counts. And moving, movement is the essential key to dispelling despair, V (formerly Eve Ensler), The Guardian, 6/29/25: “I think of Beckett, ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on,’ ‘The world is essentially over. I will fight for another day,’ ‘I have lost my faith in humans. I commit to love them more.’”
"An Existential Threat to the Rule of Law" (Some Notes on the Supreme Court and the War on Immigrants), Rebecca Solnit, Meditations in an Emergency, 6/28/25: “After a lifetime in a relatively predictable country, one governed by norms as well as laws set down in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, all bets are off as to what will happen next, both with what the Trump junta does and what civil society does. We make the future in the present with how we show up or don't, and while that's always true, it's never been more urgently so.”
America, America, Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin, Newsletter, 6/27/25: “It is a strange day in America, a bad day in America, as the cracks at the root of our foundation bring us to perhaps what was our inevitable conclusion. White supremacy has done us in, again and always, it seems.”
The Federalist Society is Full of Shit: How Conservative Legal Theory Collapsed Into Partisan Hackery, Mike Brock, Notes from the Circus, 6/28/25: “It was always bullshit. But now we have proof.”
The Supreme Court Sides with Trump Against the Judiciary: Its ruling lets the President temporarily revoke birthright citizenship—and enforce other unconstitutional executive orders without fear of being blocked by ‘rogue judges,’ Ruth Marcus, New Yorker, 6/27/25
Abstruse yet monumental: the scope and impact of the US supreme court’s birthright citizenship ruling: An expert addresses concerns from different rules for different states to a change in how rulings can be challenged, Maanvi Singh, The Guardian, 6/28/25: “It doesn’t immediately change anything about how citizenship is granted in the US, and it profoundly shifts the ways in which the federal courts work.”
Supreme Court Porn ID Ruling ‘A Blow to Freedom of Speech and Privacy,’ Says ACLU: ‘The legislature claims to be protecting children from sexually explicit materials, but the law will do little to block their access, and instead deters adults from viewing vast amounts of First Amendment-protected content,’ Stephen Prager, Common Dreams, 6/27/25
‘This Isn’t Just About Policy, It’s About What Kind of Nation We Want to Be’: interview with LaToya Parker on Trump budget's racial impact, Janine Jackson, CounterSpin, 6/27/25
Would you rather have cheap energy, or stupid culture wars? Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" is an attack on American energy production, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 6/29/25
Senate excludes trillions in debt to make Trump’s tax bill seem cheaper: Traditional estimates say that Trump’s tax package will add about $4 trillion to the national debt. Senate Republicans have slashed that number by changing the way Congress does its accounting, Alyssa Fowers, Hannah Dormido, Washington Post, 6/28/25
What the Supreme Court Knew in 1803: And Why it Matters Today, Joyce Vance, Civil Discourse, 6/26/25: “The Court writes that if ‘a legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law … then written Constitutions are absurd attempts on the part of the people to limit a power in its own nature illimitable.’ The same is true of actions taken by a president.” (DW: someone might share this piece with John Roberts, et al. Nah.)
Majority of Democrats want party leaders replaced as DNC turmoil deepens: New polling reveals growing discontent with Democratic leadership as base pushes for stronger opposition to Trump and support for progressive policies, Alexis Sterling, Nation of Change, 6/24/25
Zohran Mamdani's People-Powered Win Is a Rebuke to Democrat Cowardice: Providing an alternative to establishment politics and an increasingly right-leaning party made all the difference for Mamdani, Lex McMenamin, Teen Vogue, 6/25/25
Will the Democrats learn from Zohran Mamdani’s victory? Too many Democratic party leaders would rather be the captains on a sinking Titanic than change course, Bernie Sanders, The Guardian, 6/25/25
Why Big Tech Turned Against Democrats — and Democracy: Trump’s America is turning its back on the future — with Big Tech’s help, Paul Krugman, Newsletter, 6/24/25
“A City we can afford:” capitalism and democracy in New York, Adam Tooze, Chartbook, 6/29/25: “Those earning in the top 3 percent have seen their incomes soar away, whilst the rest of the population have seen increases barely in line with the cost of living.”
Women’s rights in a world at war: Democracy is not a zero-sum game, Lyz Lenz, Men Yell at Me, 6/25/25: “‘Stripping people of rights in the name of morality or the nation or a patriarchal wet dream belongs to the broader logic amplified by authoritarian nationalism.’”
Trump's secret police are terrorizing American streets,The altercations are growing more tense — especially in Los Angeles, Justin Glawe, Public Notice, 6/27/25: “Many of the incidents are being caught on camera by citizens, bystanders, and activists…show the aggressive and often inhumane tactics used by immigration agents who are concealing their identities with masks.”
A Nation of Immigrants Under Attack, Farrah Hassen, CounterPunch, 6/27/25: “We must stand together and demand that ICE leave our communities. We are a nation of immigrants after all.”
The Iran Strike as a Holy War: Trump's bargain with Christian nationalists and the theological bases of the war, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Lucid, 6/24/25: “…we need to understand how fundamentalist religious beliefs, including the concept of holy war, are shaping American foreign and military policy.”
Traitors to the Earth: Fascism, Christian Nationalism, and the Tech Elite: “They understand that what they’re doing is devastating, and they’re doing it anyway,” says Astra Taylor, Kelly Hayes, Organizing my Thoughts, 6/26/25: “…we need ‘a movement that is attuned to the fact that the people we’re up against are traitors to this planet, and its people, and the other species who we share the earth with.’”
Ask your questions openly and listen without argument to the poets’ words; don’t be impatient with the pronouncements of the elders–they don’t make them by accident.
—from “Note on the Lessons of Antipoetry,” Nicanor Parra
AI, Ayee, Oi Vey
How Internet of Things devices affect your privacy – even when they’re not yours, David Sella-Villa, The Conversation, 6/24/25: “IoT data processed by AI can make inferences about you, rendering you legible to the AI system even before you interact with an IoT device.”
No, You Aren’t Hallucinating, the Corporate Plan for AI is Dangerous, Martin Hart-Landsberg, The Bullet, 6/27/25: “We need to resist this corporate drive to build ever more powerful AI models.”
A.I. Is Homogenizing Our Thoughts: Recent studies suggest that tools such as ChatGPT make our brains less active and our writing less original, Kyle Chayka, New Yorker, 6/25/25: “…when people use A.I. in the creative process they tend to gradually cede their original thinking.”
Does using AI make us dumber? New brain scans from MIT reveal what really happens when we let AI do the thinking, Kim "Chubby" Isenberg, Superintelligence, 6/24/25
The dawn of the posthuman age: Between new technology and low fertility, our existence as a species is not going to be the same, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 6/27/25: “The god-mind of that collective delivers us riches undreamt of by our ancestors, but we enjoy that bounty in solitude as we wirehead into the hive mind for a bit of company.”
The clamor of wealth—tree
So often shake—it is the voice
Of Hell.
—from “Guest Room,” George Oppen
Science, Environment, Wilderness
There Is No Future Where the Lakota and the Buffalo Don’t Exist Together: A tribal food systems fellow says that Buffalo are good for the land, but they also teach us how to relate to place, to other beings, and to ourselves, Elsie Dubray, Civil Eats, 6/25/25: “I see Buffalo restoration as food sovereignty. I see it as language revitalization. I see it as suicide prevention. I see it as an economic alternative to a capitalist society.”
Killer Whales Make Their Own Tools, Scientists Discover, Becky Ferreira, 404 Media, 6/28/25: “Orcas fashion tools out of kelp that they then use to groom each other…”
‘It looks more likely with each day we burn fossil fuels’: polar scientist on Antarctic tipping points: Despite working on polar science for the British Antarctic Survey for 20 years, Louise Sime finds the magnitude of potential sea-level rise hard to comprehend, Jonathan Watts, The Guardian, 6/27/25: “…suddenly, in 2023, there was an enormous drop. About 2.5 million sq km of Antarctic sea ice went missing relative to the average before 2023.”
The antidote to climate anxiety: We need to stop offering kids pint-sized solutions to tanker-sized problems, Quico Toro, One Percent Brighter, 6/23/25: “Climate anxiety is a reaction to the chasm between the scale of the problem, and the scale of the solutions the climate mainstream keeps peddling.”
Trump Administration to End Protections for 58 Million Acres of National Forests: Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the Clinton-era rule barring road construction and logging was outdated and “absurd,” Lisa Friedman, NY Times, 6/23/25 (No paywall).
As GOP Tries to Pass Tax Bill, Senate Includes Billions in Benefits for Oil Industry: Draft legislation released by the Senate Finance Committee includes $18 billion in new tax benefits for oil and gas companies and guts those for renewable energy and electric vehicles, Nicholas Kusnetz, Inside Climate News, 6/23/25
Streetlights are artificially extending the growing season in cities: What’s more, researchers found that the phenomenon will increase further as street lighting is converted to energy efficient LEDs, Warren Cornwall, Anthropocene, 6/25/25
Climate change could take a bite out of the banana industry: The ideal places to grow them could get too hot for the fruit, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 6/27/25
This battery recycling company is now cleaning up AI data centers: Redwood Materials plans to repurpose EV batteries to build renewable-powered microgrids, James Temple, MIT Technology Review, 6/26/25
China breaks more records with surge in solar and wind power: Between January and May, China added 198 GW of solar and 46 GW of wind, enough to generate as much electricity as Indonesia or Turkey, Amy Hawkins, The Guardian, 6/26/25
Your Mind Is Part of the Ecosystem: Our mental and ecological health are linked. Recognizing this interdependence can change how we relate to the world and to ourselves, Timothy Morton, MIT Press Reader, 6/20/25: “Something fascinating occurs if you start to think how the biosphere, as a total system of interactions between lifeforms and their habitats, is also like the inside of a dreaming head.”
When Did Nature Burst Into Vivid Color? Scientists reconstructed 500 million years of evolutionary history to reveal which came first: colorful signals or the color vision needed to see them, Molly Herring, Quanta, 6/27/25
Empathy isn’t generous,
It’s selfish. It’s not being nice
To say I would pay any price
Not to be those who’d die to be us.
—from “Empathy,” A.E. Stallings (via Best American Poetry and TP Winch)
Health, Wellness, Wellbeing
Laptop use in classrooms increases children’s exposure to wireless radiation, study finds, Staff, Environmental Health News, 6/27/25
Extreme heat could threaten human health on a massive scale: If the world warms 1.8 degrees F more, dangerous heat waves could plague an area the size of the U.S., YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 6/25/25
‘Explosive increase’ of ticks that cause meat allergy in US due to climate crisis: Unusually aggressive lone star ticks, common in the south-east, are spreading to areas previously too cold for them, Oliver Milman, The Guardian, 6/29/25
America’s Coming Smoke Epidemic: The research on what smoke does to a body is just beginning, Zoë Schlanger, Atlantic, 6/27/25: “What cumulative smoke exposure can do to a body and mind remains largely a mystery, but the few studies that do exist point to nothing good.” (No paywall)
The surprising ways food packaging is exposing us to microplastics: New research shows that microplastics from paint and food processing are seeping into our food and drink, Shannon Osaka, Washington Post, 6/24/25
The Coming Health Care Apocalypse: One chart on the Big Ugly Bill, Paul Krugman, Newsletter, 6/27/25: “16 million people would lose lose coverage and become uninsured…”
Birds, Birds, Birding
Utqiagvik birding festival highlights conservation and local traditions, Alena Naiden, KNBA, 6/26/25: “Tens of thousands of shorebirds, waterfowl and seabirds migrate to the tundra wetlands around Utqiaġvik in spring.”
What we’ll lose if bird banding ends: Scientists have tagged birds for more than 100 years. That preservation program might be defunded, Tove Danovich, Washington Post, 6/24/25
Miscellania
Just posted: a new Writerscast interview with author Jeff Kisseloff about his terrific memoir – Rewriting Hisstory: A Fifty-Year Journey to Uncover the Truth about Alger Hiss
Dearest Friends:
This week, we experienced gut punch after gut punch from Trump and his SCOTUS pals, in league to put heavy chains around democracy and undermine the Constitution itself.
Now more than ever, we must reach deep into ourselves for hope and optimism. These constant attacks on democracy, on humanity, and the Earth itself, require us to organize, work together, defend our values, to love each other, and stay strong.
Please keep in touch…hearing from you makes this work worthwhile.
I send my love to all of you—David
Stay strong. Banish fear. Stand up for what you know is right.—Journal of the Plague Years
Don’t just do something–stand there.—Deena Metzger