The Weird Times

Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 267, June 22, 2025 (V6 #7)

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction no longer exists.—Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

In Wag the Dog, war has to be declared by an act of Congress. But if you go to war, you don't have to declare war. You're just at war and we did that, which is not legal.—Val Kilmer

Whosoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the law and makes use of the force he has under his command... ceases in that to be a magistrate; and, acting without authority, may be opposed, as any other man, who by force invades the right of another—John Locke

Books, Music, Art, Culture

Marisol Was Nobody’s It Girl: A retrospective rescues aspects of her career from her long-running reputation as “glamorous girl artist,” including her politics, humor, and sense of self, Martha Buskirk, Hyperallergic, 6/17/25: “…one element of Marisol’s work and approach that went underappreciated is her politics, laced with a provocative sense of humor.”

‘If men couldn’t have sex with me, they didn’t know what to do with me’: Alanis Morissette on addiction, midlife liberation and the predatory 90s, Charlotte Edwardes, The Guardian, 6/21/25: “…the California-dwelling earth mother is ready to let rip again …”

Was this Revolutionary War hero America’s first openly gay general? The LGBTQ veterans who put rainbow ribbons near Baron von Steuben’s statue in D.C. think so, Petula Dvorak, Washington Post, 6/20/25

A Forgotten Sci-Fi Novel Predicts Trump’s Greenland Fixation, Aaron Rosenberg, Jacobin, 6/16/25: “Joseph Conrad’s singular foray into sci-fi uncannily anticipates an unsettled world order in which Greenland, placed under the control of a clownish minor aristocrat, represents the new imperialist frontier.” Book: The Inheritors

The Ephemeral Nature of Everything Good: On Brian Wilson, Charlotte Shane, N+1, 6/18/25: “Brian discovered that ‘music is god’s voice’ when he was a boy in desperate need of refuge.”

How a Single Court Case Could Determine the Future of Book Banning in America: on “Little v. Llano County” and the Increasingly Imperiled Freedom to Read in America, Anthony Aycock, LitHub, 6/17/25: “Here’s hoping that…those nine justices will consider the issue thoughtfully, creatively, and most important, impartially.”

Flight Instructions: How to Escape Post-Truth, Daniella Blejer, Writers for Democratic Action, 6/19/25: “When we read, we have time to reflect on the ideas and images presented in the narrative universe; we're not in a rush to make judgments and instead are carried along by the river of words. Literature helps distance us from the immediacy of social media, from the culture of post-truth—it is another form of flight.”

The past can't save you: Baseball, Iowa, Obama, and the fictions we tell ourselves, Lyz Lenz, Men Yell at Me, 6/20/25: “It is easy in this moment to wish for a simpler time. But what we are grieving isn’t a lost America. It’s a lost ignorance.”

Nothing is Promised, Askold Melnyczuk, Writers for Democratic Action, 6/17/25: “Everyone, no matter how powerful they may appear at any given moment, eventually weakens. And when they do, the fruits of their deeds begin to ripen. Ask the executioner approaching his deathbed how he sleeps.”

Are Spirit Realms Real? Virtually All Indigenous Cultures Say They Are, Rob Brezsny, Astrology Newsletter, 6/17/25: “…the vast majority of documented Indigenous traditions…have recognizable categories of people…who serve as primary intermediaries with spiritual realms.”

Nothing to Fear From the Poet but the Truth: Ted Joans fused jazz and Surrealism in poems of revolutionary fervor, David Grundy, Poetry Foundation, 6/16/25: “Jazz is my religion, and Surrealism is my point of view.”

It was me/myself/and I
Who created the original
"BIRD LIVES"
I wailed & wailed
In coffee shops wayback when
Especially on lucrative weekends
I read to tourists and squares
I wanted to change and transform
The minds of conventional Americans

—from “I, too, at the beginning,” Ted Joans

Politics, Economics, Technology

Donald Trump Bombs Iran, and America Waits: The U.S. strikes were unprecedented, and the repercussions are impossible to predict, David Remnick, New Yorker, 6/22/25: “We should be very wary of the idea that what happened tonight will somehow automatically lead to a democratic Persian Spring.”

Cheering support and instant condemnation: US lawmakers respond to attack on Iran: Ro Khanna and Bernie Sanders denounced the decision to launch attack, while most Republicans praised the action, Joanna Walters, The Guardian, 6/22/25

Trump is in danger of repeating Bush’s Middle East mistakes: The U.S. strike on Iran could easily spiral into another forever war that Americans on both the left and right broadly oppose, Matthew Duss, Sohrab Ahmari, Washington Post, 6/21/25

What Trump Really Wants Is Unchecked Power: He's launched strikes on Iran, unleashing ICE, and inciting violence — while MAGA legislators are moving to sunset our democracy via the budget bill, Edwin Eisendrath, Lincoln Square, 6/22/25

Why Bombing Iran Won't Help Trump's Sinking Poll Numbers: Understanding why Trump's poll numbers are sinking again, Dan Pfeiffer, Message Box, 6/22/25

Where Will the Israel – Iran War Go from Here? The answer to this question depends on Israel, Tomas Pueyo, Uncharted Territories, 6/22/25: “[predicting]… many more days or weeks of bombings, and potentially operations on the ground. The question becomes then: How likely is Israel going to succeed at toppling the Iranian government?”

We're at War and We're Not (Because Only Congress Can Declare War), Rebecca Solnit, Meditations in an Emergency, 6/21/25: “No kings means that a president doesn't get to unilaterally drag the nation into war, but I fear he just did.”

Treating war as reality TV, Robert B. Hubbell, Today’s Edition, 6/19/25: “…most of the media coverage is limited to breathless “Will he or won’t he,” skipping over the part where the Constitution says, ‘The president does not have the power to declare war.’”

Fourteen Steps to Tyranny: How Autocratic Breakthrough Happens — And How We Can Stop It: Autocrats follow a predictable playbook. Learn how we can disrupt their rise before revolution or civil war become the only solutions…Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 6/20/25: “… it’s so critical today that we educate people about the process and this history today so we can stop the process now, while it’s still possible.”

So many moving pieces: Trying to understand the planet and its politics on the longest day, Bill McKibben, The Crucial Years, 6/20/25: “If we were functioning effectively as a species, spreading solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries would be job one, two and three on this planet—”

How the Billionaires Took Over: Yes, Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. But the far bigger menace is the monstrous growth in wealth concentration over five decades that made a Trump presidency possible—and maybe inevitable. Here’s how we let it happen, Timothy Noah, New Republic, 6/18/25

The Tragedy of Political Violence: It Works, David Schultz, CounterPunch, 6/19/25: “History’s harshest lesson is this—while political violence is almost always wrong, it is also, disturbingly, effective.”

Trump’s War on Blue America: It’s flagrantly corrupt, aberrant, and more or less all he’s got left, Harry Litman, Talking Feds, 6/19/25

Posse Comitatus Act Meets the President’s “Protective Powers”: What’s Next in Newsom v. Trump, Steve Vladek, Ryan Goodman, Just Security, 6/20/25: “…the central legal question arising out of the use of military force in and around Los Angeles is not whether the troops are engaged in any ‘law enforcement-like activities,’ but whether those activities are strictly necessary (and incidental) to the protection of federal property and functions. Insofar as they are not, we believe they violate the Posse Comitatus Act.”

Noem’s Threat to Remove Elected Officials in California Mimics Authoritarians Abroad: For Erdogan, Putin and Bukele, Removing Local and Regional Officials is Part of Consolidating Power, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Lucid, 6/19/25

Conservatives Still Don't Read, but Now Listen to Rogan: New data shows that the right-wing bubble has gotten worse, Richard Hanania, Newsletter, 6/16/25

Murmuration: A Conversation with Kate Scott about Resistance at the Border: A cross-border gathering evokes a creative world of “gritty hope” in the face of new wall construction, Todd Miller, Border Chronicles, 6/18/25: “What we have here is celebratory activism. You show up. You share your joy and your love and your conviction and your compassion, and you keep it in your heart because no tyrannical regime can take that away from you.”

Where is the outrage over Skrmetti? On the far right's campaign to create uncertainty over gender-affirming medical care for minors — and the powerful institutions that helped along the way, Chris Geidner, LawDork, 6/19/25: “…fact of the focus of that attack: Letting children be themselves.”

When Small Men and Women Rule, People of Character Stand Up, Sherrilyn Ifill, Newsletter, 6/20/25: “Our only hope is to become bigger ourselves. More focused in our determination to fight. More robust in our advocacy. More strategic in our planning. Firmer in our conviction….No one is coming to save us. We will need to save ourselves.”

A Path to Pushing MAGA Out of Power, Max Elbaum, Convergence, 6/17/25: “Only a new governing coalition capable of expanding political democracy and beginning a process of structural change can push MAGA back to the margins. Lessons from the 2020 election and the Biden years help show a path toward that goal.”

From the Streets of LA to the National Stage: The Left Must Win the Cultural War: Trump’s war on dissent can only be defeated by a left that challenges the values sustaining authoritarianism, Henry A. Giroux, Truthout, 6/20/25

The American Opposition Has a Mandate. Will They Accept It? After millions marched, the real test begins: Will the movement—and its leaders—follow through? Garry Kasparov, Next Move, 6/17/25: “This can’t be a one-off. Next, sharpen the ask…. The demagogues won’t stop. It’s essential that you don’t either.”

“Neither our media nor our political system is designed to deal with a far right authoritarian party,” Aaron Rupar and Thor Benson, Public Notice, 6/21/25

Trump undermines Watergate laws in massive shift of ethics system: Congress built a system 50 years ago to prevent another Nixon. Trump seems determined to dismantle those rules, Naftali Bendavid, Washington Post, 6/21/25

Trump Is Objectively Bad for America. Why Won't More Journalists Say So? I'd be derelict in my duty as a reporter if I obscured this truth, John Harwood, Zeteo, 6/18/25: “…he demonstrates with crystal clarity the difference between right and wrong, between what’s good and bad for our country.”

The Democrats’ “Great Un-awokening” is a Giant Political Diversion: Democrats should not play on Republican turf, Robert Reich, Newsletter, 6/17/25

Brad Lander Showed Democrats What to Do: Dems have been sitting on their most effective tool to fight fascism this whole time: their own bodies, Rafi Schwartz, Discourse, 6/17/25

The Grift Economy: How Nihilists Turned Expertise into the Enemy, Mike Brock, Notes from the Circus, 6/16/25: “…a good third of this country now lives in a reality constructed entirely by bullshit artists who want to sell them survival gear and supplements.”

‘You don’t brag about wiping out 60‑70,000 people’: the men who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Stephen Walker, The Guardian, 6/22/25: “Today, every one of the crew members who carried out the bombings is dead. Here, one of the last writers to interview them reopens his files.”

So put a candle in the window
And a kiss upon my lips
As the dish outside the window
Fills with rain
Oh and just like a stranger
With the weeds in your heart
Pay the fiddler off
Till I come back again

—from “Time,” Tom Waits

AI, Ayee, Oi Vey

1984, but with LLM’s, Gary Marcus, Marcus on AI, 6/21/25: “Surveillance tools Orwell himself barely dreamed of. LLMs may not be AGI, but they could easily become the most potent form of mind control ever invented.”

How artificial intelligence controls your health insurance coverage, Jennifer D. Oliva, The Conversation, 6/20/25: “The move toward regulating how health insurers use AI in determining coverage has clearly begun, but it is still awaiting a robust push. Patients’ lives are literally on the line.”

The Entire Internet Is Reverting to Beta: The AI takeover is changing everything about the web—and not necessarily for the better, Matteo Wong, Atlantic, 6/18/25: “The embarrassing failures are a feature of AI products, and thus they are becoming features of the broader internet. If this is the AI age, then we’re living in broken times.”

ChatGPT May Be Linked to 'Cognitive Debt,' New Study Finds, Becky Ferreira, 404 Media, 6/21/25: “A preprint study found that participants who used an LLM to write essays performed worse “at all levels” than those who didn’t.”

Can Copyright Survive AI? Designed to protect human creativity, copyright law is under pressure from generative AI. Some experts question whether it has a future, Laura González Salmerón, AI Frontiers, 6/19/25: “…some legal scholars believe that copyright’s fundamental premises are ill-suited for the AI era.”

AI Scraping Bots Are Breaking Open Libraries, Archives, and Museums, Emanuel Maiberg, 404 Media, 6/17/25: "This is a moment where that community feels collectively under threat and isn't sure what the process is for solving the problem.”

I will sit out this passion

unreconciled, thanks: there are

too many voices. My visions

are not causal but final:

there’s no place to go to

but on. I’ll dance at the ends

of the white strings of nerves

and love for a while, your slave.

Oh stupid condition, I drink

to your Presences in hope of sleep

asleep, and continuity awake.

—from “Against a Sickness: To the Female Double Principle God,” Alan Dugan

Science, Environment, Wilderness

Barbara Damrosch’s Life in the Garden: The acclaimed garden writer’s latest book is part memoir, part garden guide and part call to action, Holli Cederholm, Barn Raiser, 6/16/25:
“Gardening is not so much a kind of a belief system as an expression of your personality…. There’s too much fear of nature right now.” Book: A Life in the Garden

Lightning Strikes the Arctic: What Will It Mean for the Far North? A warmer world is expected to bring more thunderstorms, especially at higher latitudes. Scientists are now reporting a dramatic surge in lightning in the Far North and are scrambling to parse how this could affect wildfires, the chemistry of the atmosphere, and Arctic ecosystems, Nicola Jones, Yale E360, 6/18/25

Alaska just hit a climate milestone — its first-ever heat advisory: The heat bearing down on central Alaska "could feel like 110" in a state where the sun can shine all day, Lois Parshley, Grist, 6/16/25

Climate misinformation turning crisis into catastrophe, report says: False claims obstructing climate action, say researchers, amid calls for climate lies to be criminalized, Damian Carrington, The Guardian, 6/19/25

Carney’s Risk Warning Reverberates as Global Regulators Disagree Over Climate, Alastair Marsh, Bloomberg, 6/19/25: “…how one central banker’s stark warning on climate in 2015 now looks prophetic.”

Plastic bag fees and bans help protect beaches and riverbanks, study finds: But even places with bag policies are seeing a greater prevalence of plastic bags on beaches and riverbanks, Allyson Chiu, Washington Post, 6/19/25 (No paywall)

Nonproducing Oil Wells May Be Emitting 7 Times More Methane Than We Thought: A study measured methane flow from more than 450 nonproducing wells across Canada, but thousands more remain unevaluated, Lauren Schneider, Eos, 6/16/25

Senate Republicans double down and target clean energy in draft tax bill, Alexa St. John, AP News, 6/17/25

‘This isn’t a gimmick’: the New Yorkers trying to restore the American chestnut, Oliver Milman, The Guardian, 6/19/25: “More than 120 years after billions of the trees were wiped out, blight-proof seeds are being planted.” Photograph Ben Hider/New York Restoration Project

Who cares what I have failed to become.

I will die knowing that

we lived forever.

—from “Immortality,” Wes Matthews

Health, Wellness, Wellbeing

Warmer winters increase West Nile risk: The disease, transmitted to humans by mosquitoes, can cause fatal neurological damage in some cases, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 6/20/25

Field notes from the end of life: My thoughts on living while dying: My cancer has metastasized, but I’m not giving up on life yet. I’ve also learned lessons I want to share, Kim Fellner, Washington Post, 6/16/25: “I am grateful that my illness, although weird and random, is part of the natural world, unlike violence or a death for which there is someone to blame.”

Birds, Birds, Birding

Scientists Are Using Drones to Unleash Thousands of Mosquitoes in Hawaii in a Bid to Save Native Birds. Here’s How It Works: The lab-raised, non-biting male mosquitoes are meant to breed with the invasive ones on the islands and produce sterile eggs that will help suppress avian malaria, Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian, 6/16/25

They have big brains, long childhoods and sociable, curious minds. So why haven’t birds developed complex culture? Antone Martinho-Truswell, Aeon, 6/17/25: “Humans, being slow, flightless, hairless, clawless apes, had a huge amount to gain by evolving the tools of cultural transmission. Birds, flying, living long lives of relative ease, do not feel the same pressure.”

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Friends:

We know that protests alone will not change anything. But we are only at the beginning of a new wave of resistance and opposition to Trump’s fossil-fueled regime that is using every trick in the authoritarian playbook to build and maintain its power over all of us.

It is no surprise that Trump bombed Iran, dragging us into a new war: a war spectacle will take all the attention off his disastrous administration and his terrible polling, and like the WWE star he thinks he is, will make him feel he is the strong man his minions want him to be.

We know better.

Heroes of the opposition have yet to emerge, but I know they will. And all of us have our own parts to play. Talk to your friends and neighbors. Create your own communities that can become active and protective when needed. We are the Resistance. So resist in whatever way you can. Care for each other. Love each other. That is how we can defend our values and save our souls.

We stand together in our communities of every kind. In weeks ahead I hope to be able to write with more concrete ideas and a vision for our future.

Please keep in touch…hearing from you makes the work I do worthwhile.

I send my love to all of you — David

Compassion is not a hierarchy. It's the entire ladder of humanity.—Summer Brenner

Stay strong. Banish fear. Stand up for what you know is right.—Journal of the Plague Years