The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 201, March 17, 2024 (V4 #45)
I do think there's something about the digital age that is increasingly dehumanizing us. We're in this very weird place where we're being pulled into experiences that aren't really experiences at all.—J. J. Abrams
Tomorrow morning, unless things vastly improve, I’ll go in person to the front of the caravan and take it over the mountain—Lyn Hejinian
Books, Art, Music, Culture
Stargazer’s paradise: Oregon area named world’s largest dark sky sanctuary: Certification awarded for 2.5m acres offering pristine views of night sky, with hopes for expansion to 11m acres, David Anguiano, The Guardian, 3/15/24
“So Boundless an Affluence of Sublime Mountain Beauty…” When John Muir First Encountered Yosemite: on the Great American Wanderer’s Experience of the Sierra Nevadas, Dean King, LitHub, 3/14/24: “What is the human part of the mountains’ destiny?” Book: Guardians of the Valley: John Muir and the Friendship That Saved Yosemite
The Tale of Genji: A Visual Journey Through the World’s First Novel: on Japan’s National Literary Treasure, Marie Mutsuki Mockett, LitHub, 3/12/24: “The novel requires that we meet it on its own terms and broaden our understanding of what fiction can be.”
Outsider’s Outsider: At once famous and obscure, marginal and central, Harry Smith anticipated and even invented several important elements of Sixties counterculture, J. Hoberman, NY Review of Books, 3/21/24 issue: “At once famous and obscure, marginal and central, Smith anticipated and even invented important elements of the Sixties counterculture.”
All that is true about aging is illuminated on a walk, Anne Lamott, Washington Post, 3/14/24: “Age is giving me the two best gifts: softness and illumination. It would have been nice if whoever is in charge of such things doled them out in our younger years, but that’s not how it works. Age ferries them across the water, and they will bring us through whatever comes.” (Gift article)
The Cost of Our Debris: The stated purpose of Jay Owens’s new book is to “think with dust,” specifically “human-made” dust and what it reveals—the forensic fingerprint, so to speak, that our species has left upon this planet, Verlyn Klinkenborg, NY Review of Books, 3/21/24 issue: “Dust can be both the essence of deadness and the substance of life.”
Kate Middleton and the End of Shared Reality: Nothing is true and everything is possible, Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, 3/11/24: “Experts have reasoned that technology might become so good at conjuring synthetic media that it becomes difficult for anyone to believe anything they didn’t witness themselves. The royal-portrait debacle illustrates that this era isn’t forthcoming. We’re living in it.”
‘We wanted to invade media’: the hippies, nerds and Hollywood pros who brought The Simpsons to life: The Simpsons’ roots run deep. And as Matt Groening’s early collaborators explain, it owes its global success to a perfect storm of punk zine attitude and TV professionalism, Larry Ryan, The Guardian, 3/11/24: “An avant garde placed squarely in the entertainment field …. Capitalism for good or ill is the river in which we sink or swim.”
Authors push back on the growing number of AI 'scam' books on Amazon, Andrew Limbong, NPR, 3/13/24: “…while it's possible to flag writing that's AI generated right now…writers are thinking ahead to a future where it won't be so easy.
The Epic Track: “Take A Walk On the Wild Side,” Ellen Fagan, Culture Sonar, 3/15/24: “-“Holly,” the “he” who became a “she” after some brow-tweezing and leg shaving on a hitchhike from Miami. “She” was Holly Woodlawn, the transgender Warhol superstar whose madly-arched eyebrows and endearing overbite became a legend in Warhol’s films Trash and Women in Revolt.”
Sugar Plum Fairy came and hit the streets
Looking for soul food and a place to eat
Went to the Apollo
You should've seen them go, go, go
—from “Walk on the Wild Side,” Lou Reed
Politics, Economics
Analysis Shows ‘Unprecedented Surge’ of Dark Money Ahead of 2024 Elections: “Contributions from dark money groups and shell companies are outpacing all prior elections and may even surpass the roughly $660 million in contributions from unknown sources that flooded 2020 elections,” Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams, 3/14/24
Why Trust is the Thing Enemies of Democracies Always Target First: Trust is the single most important thing any government has; it is truly what makes a nation viable…Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 3/15/24: “The crisis with the Supreme Court; the racist mass shooters in Buffalo, El Paso, and white supremacist militias; Republican primary candidates trying to one-up each other on their willingness to refuse to count all the ballots in the upcoming 2024 election; and our surpassing 1 million deaths from Covid all derive from the same thing: the destruction of trust in American politics and society.”
Biden needs to show up like it's SOTU for the next 233 days, Steve Schmidt, The Warning, 3/17/24: “It is time for the president to crack down on the political shit show surrounding him. It is failing him, the country and the future on a daily basis. The president needs to show up like it’s the State of the Union for the next 233 days. There is no more time to waste.”
Trump just rug-pulled the China hawks on TikTok: The CCP and its allies have bought themselves a new champion, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 3/11/24 “Why are both TikTok’s current management and CCP mouthpieces so desperate to prevent a sale? After all, TikTok would still exist, and ByteDance would get tens of billions of dollars in cash. There’s only one answer that makes sense: Chinese authorities believe that TikTok is an important tool for influencing public opinion in the United States.”
Trump's $91.6 million question, Judd Legum, Popular Information, 3/11/24: “We already know that somehow he got a bond from Chubb. I'm interested in knowing, for instance, did somebody have to co-sign?”
How Donald Trump Spun a Political Career Out of Conspiratorial Hatred: on the Clear and Present Danger of Far-Right Extremism in America, Arthur Goldwag, LitHub, 3/13/24: “If Trump hadn’t existed, he would have had to have been invented, because he is a symptom of problems that are hardwired into America’s geography, economy, and culture.” Book: The Politics of Fear: The Peculiar Persistence of American Paranoia
US firm that paid indicted FBI informant tied to Trump associates, records reveal: Alexander Smirnov was paid $600,000 in 2020 – the same year he allegedly began lying to FBI about Bidens’ role in Ukraine business, Jacqueline Sweet, The Guardian, 3/14/24
Donald Trump Is a National-Security Risk: The GOP candidate should not be given intelligence briefings, Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, 3/13/24: “Trump is an anti-American, debt-ridden, unstable man who has voiced his open support for violent seditionists. If he were any other citizen asking for the privilege of handling classified material, he would be sent packing.”
Self-Regulation in the Era of Political Chaos: Is every single Trump-related news event really a level eleven crisis? Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin, ECM, 3/16/24: “It’s really hard to engage positive vision and hope from a place of fight or flight, panic, and outrage. And those things are also inevitable predictors of political burnout, cynicism, hopelessness and mass political fatigue, all of which could cost us democracy. Trump and his ilk are counting on it.”
Media compounds failure on Hur report, Judd Legum, Rebecca Crosby, Popular Information, 3/14/24: “None of the outlets mentioned that Biden could recall the purpose of a half-hour meeting on February 16, 2017, from memory.”
Justice Ginsburg’s Family Decries Bestowing RBG Award on Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch: The awards are being handed out by a foundation chaired by a Trump donor, David Corn, Ali Breland, Mother Jones, 3/15/24
Dan Osborn Challenges Nebraska’s Political Establishment with a Blue-Collar Agenda: In his campaign for the U.S. Senate, Osborn, who led a prominent labor strike against Kellogg’s in 2021, plans to bring together a coalition of farmers, union laborers and small business owners, Steve Early, Barn Raiser, 3/13/24
Surprise! Maryland could determine control of the Senate this fall, Karen Tumulty, Washington Post, 3/14/24: “…there is no place where Democrats are favored to wrest a seat from Republicans.”
‘We are all mixed’: Henry Louis Gates Jr on race, being arrested and working towards America’s redemption: The US academic and TV historian’s rejection of racial categories has drawn criticism from some but his sense of mischief and underlying belief in American decency remains undimmed, Afua Hirsch, The Guardian, 3/10/24: “Imagine my surprise when I received my first DNA results, and I’m 49% white!”
‘Idaho’s seen as a war zone’: the lone abortion activist defying militias and the far right: Jen Jackson Quintano is her region’s only abortion rights organizer. Faced with a ‘culture of silence’, she’s platforming women – and changing minds, Cassidy Randall, The Guardian, 3/12/24: “How can I ask other people to put themselves out there, if I’m not willing to do that myself?”
New data explodes myth of crime wave fueled by migrants, Judd Legum, Tesnim Zekeria, Popular Information, 3/12/24: “From 2012 to 2022, undocumented immigrants were 14% less likely to be convicted of murder and 41% less likely to be convicted of any criminal offense.”
School Hate Crimes Quadruple in GOP States Attacking LGBTQ+ Rights: “For the activists and politicians writing these laws, this is just a sign that their plan is working,” Julia Conley, Common Dreams, 3/12/24
Lost Dogs, Rural Progressives, and Political Alliances: Two runaway hunting dogs led to meeting a neighbor--you never know who you're going to meet out in the sticks, Jess Piper, A View from Rural Missouri, 3/13/24: “We can’t pull out of an area because it’s “too red” and expect anything other than more red. We have to do better, and when we say folks matter, we show them they matter by finding and funding Democratic challengers for every race on every ballot in every state. We bring rural people a message and we don’t leave…we don’t abandon them.”
Schumer Urges Netanyahu Exit as Democrats’ Gaza Worries Grow; Call for new leadership comes as civilian deaths mount; Senate leader says there should be two-state solution, Steven T. Dennis, Galit Altstein, Bloomberg News, 3/14/24
How To Make Friends and Influence People: Supporters of Palestinian rights must change their rhetoric if they want to influence a broad cross-section of Americans, Zaid Jilani, Persuasion, 3/15/24: “…too much of the movement is captured by maximalist sloganeering and fringe ideology that is ultimately undermining the cause of Palestinian freedom.”
I want a yard full of woodland
strawberries, for them to spread further each year,
until every summer is covered in seeds.
I don’t want to catch dead flowers.
Technically, strawberries are roses. Strawberries
are not true. They will run, any chance they get.
—from “Iridology,” Annette C. Boehm
Science, Environment
Radioactive waste, baby bottles and Spam: the deep ocean has become a dumping ground: The ocean’s depths are not some remote alien realm, but are in fact intimately entangled with every other part of the planet. We should treat them that way, James Bradley, The Guardian, 3/12/24: “Like the slow decay of the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of nuclear waste spread across the sea floor, the toxic legacies of human industry written into the bodies of ocean creatures are a reminder that the deep is not a place of forgetting, but an ark of memory.”
Which actions benefit the climate the most? This tool can show you: The online tool called En-ROADS helps communities understand which policies will help the most, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 3/15/24: “Climate Interactive and the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative created a free online simulation tool called En-ROADS.”
Climate change matters to more and more people – and could be a deciding factor in the 2024 election, Matt Burgess, The Conversation, 3/12/24: “…if the election were held today, the totality of evidence suggests that most voters would prefer a climate-conscious candidate, and that most climate-conscious voters currently prefer a Democrat.”
Get Ready to Eat Pond Plants: Meet the amazing azolla, a nutritious fern that grows like crazy, capturing carbon in the process. Could it be a food—and fertilizer and biofuel—of the future? Matt Simon, Wired, 3/11/24
Playing thriving reef sounds on underwater speakers ‘could save damaged corals:’ Coral larvae more likely to settle on degraded reefs bathed in marine soundscapes, Caribbean study shows, Ian Sample, The Guardian, 3/13/24
Bats of the Midnight Sun: Active in daylight during the Arctic summer and hibernating during the long winter nights, Alaska’s little brown bats are a unique population. Can their niche lives help them avoid white-nose syndrome? Trina Moyles, Hakai, 3/12/24
What we can learn from whale grandmothers: New research suggests certain species of whales undergo menopause to help their offspring and grand offspring, Maggie Penman, Dino Grandoni, Washington Post, 3/13/24: “What the researchers found was that the overall life span of the species that go through menopause was much longer than species that don’t — creating more opportunity for overlap between generations in family groups.”
The Iowa Trout Stream at the Center of a Feedlot Fight: Environmental groups and residents argue that the Supreme Beef CAFO has a faulty manure disposal plan that threatens Bloody Run Creek, a spring-fed trout stream. They also allege a brazen abuse of power at all levels of decision-making, Nina Elkadi, Civil Eats, 3/13/24
Fruit Chaos Is Coming: Climate change is threatening to turn sublime summer stone fruits disgusting, or rob us of their pleasures entirely, Zoë Schlanger, The Atlantic, 3/11/24 (gift article)
Fungi Are Helping Farmers Unlock the Secrets of Soil Carbon: By tapping into underground fungal networks, farmers are learning how to build lush, spongy soil that supports healthy plants and stores carbon underground, Grey Moran, Civil Eats, 3/11/24
States grapple with how to grow in drying West: Communities are being forced to confront the challenge of not enough water to support building into the desert, Jennifer Yachnin, E&E News, 3/12/2024: “The era of limits is upon us. Many water managers who previously thought they had everything under control are now understanding that there are more challenges than they expected.” (Kathy Jacobs, U of Arizona)
The Designer Who’s Trying to Transform Your City Into a Sponge: Kongjian Yu pioneered China’s “sponge city” concept—less concrete and more green spaces to exploit stormwater instead of fighting it. Metropolises all over the world are following suit, Matt Simon, Wired, 3/15/24
What Is Quantum Teleportation? Teleporting people through space is still science fiction. But quantum teleportation is dramatically different and entirely real. Janna Levin interviews the theoretical physicist John Preskill about teleporting bits and the promise of quantum technology, Janna Levin, Quanta, 3/14/24
The 4 Big Questions the Pentagon’s New UFO Report Fails to Answer: The Pentagon says it’s not hiding aliens, but it stops notably short of saying what it is hiding. Here are the key questions that remain unanswered—some answers could be weirder than UFOs, Garrett M. Graff, Wired, 3/11/24: “What, exactly, are the Pentagon, intelligence community, or defense contractors working on that, from a concentric circle or two away inside the shadowy world of SAPs, looks and sounds like reverse-engineering out-of-this-world technology or even studying so-called “non-human biologics”?”
He takes a book down from his shelf & scribbles across a
page of text: I am the final one. This means the world will
end when he does.
—from “A Paradise of Poets,” Jerry Rothenberg
Health, Wellness
With microplastics, scientists are in a race against time: Microplastics are in our blood, lungs, the air we breathe. But their effects are still largely a mystery, Shannon Osaka, Washington Post, 3/11/24 “What you have is an absolute unknown cocktail of chemicals that are on these microplastics.” (Gift article)
The New Science on What Ultra-Processed Food Does to Your Brain: Studies are finding links between these foods and changes in the way we learn, remember and feel, Andrea Petersen, Wall Street Journal, 3/11/24: “One of the main ways diet affects mental health is likely via the gut microbiome.” (Gift article)
Breakthrough AI Can Now Predict Alzheimer's Up to 7 Years in Advance, David Nield, Science Alert, 3/14/24: “We don't yet have a cure for Alzheimer's disease, but detecting it earlier means preparations and perhaps even preventative measures can be put in place.”
Birds, Birds, Birds
The Birds of Northern Manhattan: On Vanishing Human and Non-Human Habitat: the Intersections of Climate Change and Gentrification, Emily Raboteau, LitHub, 3/13/24: “I love these birds for their beauty, the way birders love actual birds, for the exalted brushstrokes of their wingspans that lift us from the drudge of survival.” Book: Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against “The Apocalypse”
Backyard Bird Diary, Amy Tan, Paris Review, 3/13/24: “The more I observe, the more I realize that every part of a bird and every behavior has a specific purpose, a reason, and an individual meaning. Instinct does not account for everything that is fascinating.”
Newly Discovered Fossil Named For David Attenborough Pushes Back Era of Toothless Birds by 50 Million Years, Andy Corbley, Good News Network, 3/12/24
I'll stand by you
Take me in, into your darkest hour
And I'll never desert you
I'll stand by you
—from “I’ll Stand by You,” The Pretenders, written by Billy Steinberg, Chrissie Hynde, Thomas Kelly
Today I am thinking about hope and love, family, friends and how we must stand together, lean on each other—I know that we will prevail.
Wherever you are, whoever you are with, whatever you are doing — thanks for who you are and what you do. Please continue to keep in touch. Send messages and news.
Above all, stay well; share love; work for good. We need each other, now more than ever.
Love from here—David