The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 243, January 5, 2025 (V5 #35)
…the national interest is not always the sum of all our single or special interests. We are all Americans together, and we must not forget that the common good is our common interest and our individual responsibility.—Jimmy Carter
Art triumphs in the end. The very hollowness of its opponents ensures that eventual victory. It’s really just a matter of time.—Ted Gioia
Books, Music, Art, Culture
Jimmy Carter’s life after the presidency set a bar that few others have followed: Carter was a man of extraordinary integrity. No president after him succeeded at doing as much post-White House good, Jan-Werner Müller, The Guardian, 12/30/24
Writing as Transformation: Words and phrases came from nowhere; I rarely had any sense of what they meant or to what context they belonged, Louise Glück, New Yorker, 1/4/25: “I t seems to me that I have wanted to write for the whole of my life. The intensity of this insistence, despite its implausibility, suggests an emotional, rather than literal, accuracy. I think my life didn’t seem my life until I started to write.”
Gazing into the Abyss of Happiness: Mastering the Art of Feeling Really Good, Rob Brezsny, Astrology Newsletter, 12/31/24: “ In The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Sogyal Rinpoche frames the issue well: ‘Would you prefer the happiness of scratching a mosquito bite over the happiness of not having a mosquito bite in the first place?’”
How a community of romance novel readers became activists: Many people in ‘romancelandia’ have rallied voters through podcasts and phone banks – and joined school boards, Carter Sherman, The Guardian, 1/3/25: “If we move through the world believing that joy is the first line of defense against tyranny – and I truly believe that – then what better than romance novels?”
Jeff Koons on why he has drawn a red line on AI in art: ‘I don’t want to be lazy:’ World’s most expensive artist, who is exhibiting at the Alhambra in Granada, sees his work as embedded in biology, Daniel Boffey, The Guardian, 1/1/25: “Throughout history, we have always been confronted by technologies that have been enlightening and that have been very, very powerful, and they change the moment we’re living in, and they change our future. But I embrace this.”
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Should Not Exist: A bad idea gets worse every year, Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, 1/2/25: “Trying to trap the energy and spirit of youthful greatness behind the ice in some sort of Fortress of Rock Solitude is nothing more than a monument to nostalgia. Worse, it’s an ongoing tribute not to music, but to capitalism.”
‘Never Too Much:’ If globalization has allowed elites to remove themselves from democratic accountability and regulation, is there any path toward a just economy? Trevor Jackson, NY Review of Books, 1/16/25 issue. Reviewed: The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism, Martin Wolf. “Both democracy and globalization seem to be in retreat in practice as well as in ideological popularity.”
Trump’s Rhino Epidemic Is Growing: Eugène Ionesco's play still offers the best allegory for our times, Shikha Dalmia, Unpopulist, 1/2/25: “He wonders whether it is possible for a single person to be right and an entire people to be wrong. (Many of us no doubt have had similar moments over the last decade!) He also reflects what the point of hanging on to civilization and its fruits—its morals, music, and art—might be if there were no one left to share them. But he quickly snaps out of it and decides to soldier on alone to save humanity. ‘I will not capitulate.’”
Casual Viewing: Why Netflix looks like that, Will Tavlin, N+1, Winter 2025 issue: “Netflix, on the other hand, is staffed by unsophisticated executives who have no plan for their movies and view them with contempt…. [resulting in] A high-gloss product that dissolves into air. Tide Pod cinema.”
How Spotify is ruining music: In “Mood Machine,” Liz Pelly argues that the streaming giant encourages boring music and lazy listeners, Franz Nicolay, Washington Post, 1/2/25: “The habits of both listeners and musicians are distorted by the gravitational pull of Spotify’s market dominance.” (Buy the book)
Michael Palma’s new translation of The Divine Comedy, Terence Winch, Best American Poetry, 12/31/24: “What he achieves in this monumental volume is quite extraordinary---'As a poet myself,’ he writes in the frontmatter, "I have sought to re-create the poetry of Dante's Commedia, as I see it on the page and hear it in my head when I read the original.” Buy the book!
Ray Johnson and Emily Dickinson’s Quiet Correspondence: The elusive correspondence artist saw himself reflected in the writer of enigmatic letters to the world, Ellen Levy, MIT Reader. “Ray Johnson, like Emily Dickinson, dreamed of an unworldly art: the sheen without the moon. And like her, Johnson dreamed of an audience that might grant him the recognition he craved — that we all crave. It was an audience that, for him as for her, took the form of a particular receiver, separated from the sender in space and time. The sender’s and receiver’s positions are reversible, they are equals, but the distance between them preserves their particularity. A perfect democracy, held in delicate, precarious balance. Unlike the other dream, not impossible on earth, for a moment, at least.”
Which is the best—
the Moon or the Crescent?
Neither—said the Moon—
That is best which is not—Achieve it—
You efface the Sheen.
—Emily Dickinson
Politics, Technology, Economics
Thucydides' Warning For America: Trump is the antithesis of Reagan -- and he could destroy American power, Dan Gardner, PastPresentFuture, 1/1/25: “Thucydides also has a warning for Americans: If Donald Trump isn’t restrained from acting on his worst impulses, his obsession with showing “strength” will diminish and gravely weaken the United States.”
Trump Has Promised to Build More Ships. He May Deport the Workers Who Help Make Them: President-elect Donald Trump has promised to increase the pace of U.S. military shipbuilding. But his pledge to also clamp down on immigration could make it hard for shipyards already facing workforce shortages, Nicole Foy, ProPublica, 1/2/25
Economy in Counties Trump Won Points to Governing Challenges: Trump won in the places that have seen the slowest growth since the pandemic, according to county-level GDP data, Shawn Donnan, Nazmul Ahasan, Alexandre Tanzi, Bloomberg, 1/3/25
Trumpism Becomes Plural: The Onset of Reality, Joe Klein, Sanity Clause, 1/2/25: “Trump will be facing…choices on all three of his big themes—not just nativism, but also protectionism and isolationism. That’s where his base lies, but there lie dragons as well.”
"Freedom Is On The March" Don't like the way things are going? Wait for the inevitable plot twist, Dan Gardner, PastPresentFuture, 1/1/25: “I personally don’t understand people who are fixedly optimistic or pessimistic about the world. (I describe myself as a “possibilist.”) How can anyone be optimistic or pessimistic when History loves nothing more than a good surprise?”
Will America Die Gradually, Then Suddenly? January 6th was a rehearsal; they're now planning 2025. Coups quietly build to an explosive tipping point, then suddenly appear as a fait accompli…Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 12/31/24
Before Inauguration: Sentencing? Joyce Vance, Civil Discourse, 1/4/25: “If Trump isn’t sentenced before he takes office, there would be an absence of finality to the case.”
I Do Not Obey in Advance, John Pavlovitz, Beautiful Mess, 1/4/25: “I refuse to normalize him. I did not vote for him, he does not represent me, and I do not believe he is at all deserving of being here—and so I grieve his ascension and resist his ugliness.”
Sobered by Responsibility? Are You F'ing Kidding Me? Trump and Musk are drunk on their hubris, Charlie Sykes, To the Contrary, 1/3/25: “By now it should be obvious that Trump is prepared to use any incident as a justification not just for his mass deportations, but also for his use of the levers of government — THE FBI, DOJ, CIA — against his enemies, foreign and domestic alike. It seems prudent to take him both literally and seriously.”
How Trump “Won:” The Anesthetized Anti-MAGA Majority, Michael Podhorzer, Weekend Reading, 1/4/25: “Trump’s candidacy was only viable because the justices he appointed to the Supreme Court: (1) disabled the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment (which should otherwise have barred him from holding office again) and (2) shielded him from standing trial before the election for trying to overturn the 2020 results or for hoarding classified documents (which would have kept his criminality in full view of the electorate, and possibly rendered his candidacy a non-starter due to a jail sentence or loss of support). In any other country, we would understand that as part of an autocratic takeover, not a democratic victory.”
Here’s How Economic Populism Can Win, Jared Abbott, Dustin Guastella, Sean Mason, Jacobin, 12/27/24: “To win competitive districts, left-wing candidates must challenge both economic oligarchy and cultural elitism.”
Democrats Are the Guardrails of Democracy - And Must Act Like It: A stronger, sharper-elbowed and more disciplined Opposition is needed to save our institutions of liberal democracy - until we can win them back, Tom Watson, The Liberal, 12/29/24
The DNC and The Democrats: What is to be done to repair the party’s national identity? John B. Judis, Liberal Patriot, 1/3/25: “…the Democrats are in desperate need of redefinition. They've now relied for five elections in a row on Donald Trump's unpopularity but have only succeeded—and partially and barely—in 2018 and 2020.”
Against the Wind: A topline analysis of the deficit Democrats need to overcome in the heartland, Lucas Kunce, Lucas’s Substack, 1/2/25: “Going forward, a victory for candidates in heartland states will almost certainly take more than marginal improvements on the 2016 performances.”
WaPo Jumps Further Into Darkness After Refusing to Print Cartoon Critical of Owner: The cartoonist has since resigned, Scott Dworkin, Dworkin Report, 1/5/25: “My job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable. For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job.”
The Rise Of Big Potato: Allegations of price collusions among the potato cartel reveal the new, sophisticated methods food corporations are using to keep prices high, Katya Schwenk, The Lever, 1/2/25: “ four firms now control at least 97 percent of the $68 billion frozen potato market…participate in the same trade associations and use a third-party data analytics platform — PotatoTrac — to share confidential business information….(allege) the firms’ collusion has driven french fries and hash browns to record-high prices.”
How do we measure whether China's economy is "ahead" of America's? Comparing economies is an inexact science, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 1/4/25: “ Americans should take little comfort in the fact that their total GDP at market exchange rates is outpacing China’s. With the world looking more dangerous and warlike by the day, manufacturing is a competition that the U.S. and its allies can ill afford to lose.”
What Happens When a Whole Generation Never Grows Up? As American 30-somethings increasingly bypass the traditional milestones of adulthood, economists are warning that what seemed like a lag may in fact be a permanent state of arrested development, Rachel Wolfe, Wall Street Journal, 12/31/24: “Stymied by this mix of high expectations and challenging economic circumstances, many 30-somethings sound disoriented and unsure about what it means to be a successful adult now.” (No paywall)
The Death of Net Neutrality Is a Bad Omen: While Americans might not mourn the loss of net neutrality, an appeals court’s ruling sets a troubling precedent for consumer protections in every industry, Brian Barrett, Wired, 1/2/25
Shall I be raised from death, the spirit asks.
And the sun says yes.
And the desert answers
your voice is sand scattered in wind.
—from “Afterword,” Louise Glück
Science, Environment
Great scientists follow intuition and beauty, not rationality: The unreasonable effectiveness of aesthetics in science, Erik Hoel, Intrinsic Perspective, 12/30/24: “…despite the best efforts by philosophers and scientists, there is still no clear solution to what's called the demarcation problem: knowing where science exactly begins and ends.”
Editors at Science Journal Resign En Masse Over Bad Use of AI, High Fees: Members of the Elsevier-published Journal of Human Evolution quit, citing AI production processes introducing errors, high author fees, and concerns over editorial independence, Jennifer Ouellette, Wired, 1/2/25
How bamboo could help lock in carbon and slow climate change: This fast-growing plant absorbs carbon quickly and can be used to manufacture flooring, furniture, and more, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 1/3/25
How poop could help feed the planet: Once you get over the ick factor, new technologies are efficiently transforming human waste into agricultural solutions, Bryn Nelson, MIT Technology Review, 1/3/25: “The energy-efficient transformation of waste into naturally derived products could eliminate greenhouse-gas emissions from stored manure and traditional fertilizer production while offsetting the energy needed to run the farm.”
Key players in brain aging: New research identifies age-related damage on a cellular level: Largest study on brain aging points to possible connections between diet, inflammation, and brain health, Allen Institute, ScienceDaily, 1/1/25: “Scientists have identified the molecular changes that occur in the brains of aging mice and located a hot spot where much of that damage is centralized.”
‘Extraordinary longevity’: great whales can live a lot longer than we thought – if we leave them alone: Bowhead whales may not be the only species that can live to 200 years old. Researchers have found that the industrial hunting of great whales has masked the ability of these underwater giants to also live to great ages, Philip Hoare, The Guardian, 1/2/25
This orca’s grief stunned the world. Now she’s mourning the loss of another calf. The southern resident killer whale, known as Tahlequah, has now lost another calf in what the Center for Whale Research called “devastating” news, Sarah Kaplan, Vivian Ho, Washington Post, 1/4/24
Florida’s manatees are actually relative newcomers, historical research suggests: State’s beloved but under-pressure sea cows were barely recorded in the area before seas warmed in the late 1700s, Richard Luscombe, The Guardian, 1/2/25
As waters rise and cities grow, this furry little Floridian may have nowhere to go: The endangered silver rice rat lives in Florida Keys marshes and swamps, which are getting inundated by sea level rise, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 12/30/24
The oldest animal ever found could reveal whether a crucial ocean current will collapse: Clam shells could help scientists understand the Atlantic Ocean’s sensitive circulation system — and predict whether that crucial system might catastrophically collapse, Sarah Kaplan, Washington Post, 12/30/24
Viewers of Quantum Events Are Also Subject to Uncertainty: The reference frames from which observers view quantum events can themselves have multiple possible locations at once—an insight with potentially major ramifications, Anil Anathaswamy, Wired, 12/29/24
Scientists Re-Create the Microbial Dance That Sparked Complex Life: Evolution was fueled by endosymbiosis, cellular alliances in which one microbe makes a permanent home inside another. For the first time, biologists made it happen in the lab, Molly Herring, Quanta, 1/2/25
The carbon in our bodies probably left the galaxy and came back on cosmic 'conveyer belt,’ Univ of Washington, ScienceDaily, 1/3/25: “Scientists recently discovered that the giant 'conveyer belt' currents that push star-forged material out of our galaxy and pull it back in can also transport carbon atoms. That means that a good deal of the carbon here on Earth, including the carbon in our bodies, likely left the galaxy at some point!”
I want a girl with uninterrupted prosperity (Uninterrupted)
Who uses a machete to cut through red tape
With fingernails that shine like justice
And a voice that is dark like tinted glass
She is fast, thorough, and sharp as a tack
She is touring the facility and picking up slack
—from “Short Skirt, Long Jacket,” Cake (written by John M. McRae)
Health, Wellness
More children are getting kidney stones. Experts think it’s their diet.: It’s a diagnosis more commonly associated with older adults, Sabrina Malhi, Washington Post, 1/2/25
The Mystery of What’s Causing Young People’s Cancer Leads to the Gut: Obesity and alcohol consumption are first priorities for cancer researchers, Brianna Abbott, Washington Post, 1/3/25: “Each generation born since the 1950s has had higher risk than the one before.”
Wildfire Smoke Is Even More Dangerous Than Anyone Knew: Smoke exposure, researchers have found, raises the risk of dementia, poor mental health, fertility problems, and neurodegenerative diseases, Kylie Mohr, Wired, 1/4/25
EPA Report Finds That Formaldehyde Presents an “Unreasonable Risk” to Public Health: The report was published weeks after a ProPublica investigation found that the chemical causes more cancer than any other toxic air pollutant and can trigger asthma, miscarriages and fertility problems, Sharon Lerner, ProPublica, 1/3/25
Inside, I’m threaded on a passion
taut as a tightrope. Strip away the hair,
the tooth, the wrinkle, the obscene
cartoon that decades scrawl—
underneath I’m naked as a nun.
I wear that nakedness for a disguise.
—from “The Marriage Wig,” Ruth Whitman
Birds, Birding
The Elephantine Memories of Food-Caching Birds: Some animals can remember where they’ve buried hundreds of thousands of seeds. Why can’t we remember where we’ve put our eyeglasses? Matthew Hutson, New Yorker, 12/29/24
2025 owls and trains, Shelby L. Moorer, Shelby Lynne Dirt and Fiction, 1/3/25: “I listen for the owl. The sound he makes when I know he can see me and I’d never be able to see him. Hearing him puts me in the right place.”
President Carter’s visits to Nepal always included his passion for bird-watching: Former US President Jimmy Carter, who passed away at the age of 100 on Sunday, used to go bird watching every time he visited Nepal. Carter, who contributed to bringing Nepal’s peace and democratic process to a logical conclusion, had a completely non-political interest in Nepal, Shree Ram Subedi, Republica, 12/30/24
In what now seems an eon ago, I worked in the Carter administration as a very young Literature Program Director in the National Endowment for the Arts. I believed then and now in the honesty and hope for good that Carter represented to all of us. I am not sad that he has died. He lived a remarkable life. But I am saddened to realize that our politics and media are constructed so as to diminish the work and values of anyone like him. We will miss him greatly, but his life can and will inspire us, especially now.
[The importance of Carter’s death] is not that there will be grief among the captains of industry and world leaders, but that he will be mourned by illiterate tribesmen and women, poor farmers, the kitchen help of the world who had met him, actually knew him and counted him as their friend. We have never had such a President who chose to go among the unwashed to bring them the hope and promise of a better life… There are tears in the Himalayan mountains, and the backcountry of central and South America, and the jungles of Africa, in the craggy mountains of Korea and in the tents of Palestine. In those and hundreds of desolate places that did not even hear the news for many days after, they will dance for him, and the tears will be real and the loss personal and that space in the heart will remain empty.—Jay Beck (Carter staffer and novelist)
TWT reflects my weekly effort to collect and share what seems most important or useful for us to know about. Please don’t let all the terrible news defeat you. There is still so much we can (and must) do, all of us together. The communities we make will save us.
Those who are willing to be vulnerable
move among mysteries.
—Theodore Roethke
Be well everyone. Stay strong. Love the ones you’re with.
Love always—David