The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 260, May 4, 2025 (V5 #52): Fifth Year Anniversary Issue!
There’s no magic to 100 days. The challenges Trump poses to our country will remain at day 1,000, and day 1,100. All we can do is continue to use every tool available to fight back and protect our democracy no matter what day it is.—Marc Elias
“‘We, the people,’ — not we, the white people — not we, the citizens or the legal voters — not we, the privileged class, and excluding all other classes, but ‘we, the people. . . ‘”—Frederick Douglass
Books, Music, Art, Culture
How Baseball Shaped Black Communities in Reconstruction-Era America: on the Early History of Black Participation in America's Pastime, Gerald Early, LitHub, 5/1/25: “Black citizens were climbing a steep hill, but they were willing to do so, in part because so many of them believed in this country, even if the country did not believe in them.” Book: Play Harder: The Triumph of Black Baseball in America
A Willful Amnesia: Reflections on the 50th Anniversary of the End of the Việt Nam War, E. Ethelbert Miller, Washington Spectator, 4/29/25: “How do we teach the lessons of the Vietnam War when America suffers from amnesia?....How do we avoid the despair that fills the air? How can we hope and pray there will be no more wars.? Have we become a nation that can no longer breathe? One cannot speak of Vietnam without remembering how divided we became as a nation. Did we ever heal?”
Trump Seeks to Eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts: The president’s budget proposal also called for getting rid of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Michael Paulson, NY Times, 5/2/25 (No paywall)
The Last Colossus: On Cynthia Ozick's ‘In a Yellow Wood’, Adam Kosan, Metropolitan Review, 4/30/25: “…in Ozick, more than character and psychology and plot, more even than precursors, maybe almost as much as language itself, the historical particulars of a people, culture, events, and tradition tend to be the senseless clay out of which her imagination makes its forms.”
Justice for Phish! How the jam band shaped US culture – without awards or big hits: They were snubbed by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But their dedicated followers – from Bernie Sanders to Maroon 5 – know they exemplify a uniquely American tradition, Matthew Cantor, The Guardian, 5/1/25
Jill Sobule, musician of same-sex anthem ‘I Kissed a Girl,’ dies at 66: Ms. Sobule was killed in a house fire outside Minneapolis a day before a planned performance in her hometown of Denver, Brian Murphy, Washington Post, 5/2/25:
I kissed a girl her lips were sweet,
She was just like kissin' me
But yeah, I kissed a girl.
Kissed a girl won't change the world
But I'm so glad—from “I Kissed a Girl”
‘He lived his whole life in that fire’: the tragic story of ‘lost’ singer Jackson C Frank: A school fire, a shooting and mental health issues plagued a man whose legacy is remembered in a new documentary, Jim Farber, The Guardian, 5/2/25 Film: Blues Run the Game: The Strange Tale of Jackson C. Frank
Unfree Minds: How Nazi Germany Perfected the Art of Inducing Fear: on the Effects of Totalitarian Terror on the Human Psyche, Charlotte Beradt, LitHub, 5/1/25: “The regime had turned its subjects, without their realizing it, into voluntary collaborators in the systematic terrorization.” Book: The Third Reich of Dreams
White Women and the Beauty Hierarchy: A Somatic Deconstruction, Sarah Shourd, Freedom Blooms, 4/28/25: “The beauty hierarchy feels like finding yourself in a dream, standing in line for a club for days not knowing if you’re going to get in or not. Why am I even standing here? Did I choose this? Can’t we just go somewhere else?”
Native American women are bringing back facial tattoos: ‘We’re a living culture:’ A collective is breathing new life into inchunwa for south-eastern Indigenous people across the US, Adria R Walker, The Guardian, 5/4/25: “Reclaiming a thousand year old artistic tradition…”
Death, divorce and the magic of kitchen objects: how to find hope in loss: As they pass through different hands, cooking utensils can magically connect us to loved ones who are no longer with us, Bee Wilson, The Guardian, 4/29/25: “Even in our supposedly rational age, this is the power of objects; they keep those we miss in the room with us.”
‘Illness and Its Very Concept:’ Surveying a century of political struggles over medicine and psychiatry, a recent book foregrounds a West German collective that sought to create a radical, patient-led form of health care, Edna Bonhomme, NY Review of Books, 5/2/25: “Health communism means all care for all people.”
Why Are Young People Everywhere So Unhappy? Here’s the answer to that—and what we can do about it, Arthur C. Brooks, Atlantic, 5/1/25: “Put close relationships with family and friends before virtually everything else… develop your inner life…don’t try to find happiness in material things…”
(the song is the melody in the word in the rhythm
the self holds the mind to the word & the thought of the song
the voice in the song sings the self to the mind
the light lights the shadow of the voice & its melody
the rhythm moves the self through the dimming night's song
the thought in the song is of night's shadows without music)
—from “Between the Night & Its Music,” A.B. Spellman
Politics, Economics, Technology
Is It Happening Here? Other countries have watched their democracies slip away gradually, without tanks in the streets. That may be where we’re headed—or where we already are, Andrew Marantz, New Yorker, 4/28/25: “Most Americans haven’t lived through a situation like this, so they have no idea what it means for powerful institutions to be captured by the state. They may assume they can keep their heads down for four years, make concessions, and then regain their independence on the back end. But history shows—and the Hungarian experience shows—that they would be mistaken.”
ICE Invades Wrong Home, Steals Their Life Savings, and Then Leaves: A woman says armed federal agents stole from her family and left their home trashed. “I know it was a little rough this morning,” one of them later told her, Hafiz Rashid, New Republic, 4/29/25
The New “National Defense Area” at the Southern Border: What You Need to Know, Mark Nevitt, Just Security, 4/29/25: “the establishment of a National Defense Area increases the military’s role at the southern border, effectively bypassing longstanding legal restrictions put in place by the Posse Comitatus Act.”
Trump is setting us up for a cyber catastrophe: Trump’s neglect of cybersecurity is a “priceless gift” to adversaries like Russia and China, Carolyn Orr Bueno, Weaponized, 4/29/25
Why is America sleeping as autocracy approaches? The country’s future depends on law firms, universities and media companies – as well as everyday Americans – breaking their silence, Governor Jay Inslee, The Guardian, 4/29/25
Tell the Truth: In which I wonder why the New York Times Editorial Board insists on pulling punches, John Warner, Biblioracle Recommends, 5/4/25: “I ask, in what world is “the burgeoning authoritarian may have a point and do some good things” a sound approach for resisting a wannabe dictator?”
Regulatory Tyranny Makes Both the Private and Public Sector Inefficient: American needs Hamilton, not DOGE, to build state capacity and deliver necessary public goods, Francis Fukuyama, Unpopulist, 5/2/25
How to Fight Fascism in a Captured State: A union exists whenever a group of people work together to solve a problem they couldn’t alone, says Shane Burley, Kelly Hayes, Organizing My Thoughts, 5/1/25: “I think this is a totally unwritten, unpredicted situation where the rules are entirely different and we should treat them as entirely differently.”
100 Days of Collapse: A Reckoning of Meaning and Power: How the Trump administration has dismantled constitutional democracy—and why the deeper crisis is one of shared reality, moral clarity, and civic courage, Mike Brock, Notes from the Circus, 4/30/25: “ It's the systematic transformation of constitutional democracy into something fundamentally different: a government where law yields to loyalty, where institutional constraints become personal conveniences, where the machinery of state serves private rather than public interests.”
There Will Be Blood: Trump lays the groundwork to turn the military on American citizens, Susan Zakin, Journal of the Plague Years, 4/30/25: “…the Trump administration is using immigration as a pretext for establishing military control over the country. These executive orders, which didn’t receive much press coverage, would allow them to do exactly that. They are a big fucking deal.”
They’re Coming for the Truth-Tellers: Bondi’s Plan to Jail Journalists Is How Democracies Die & Dictatorships Begin: It’s not paranoia when it’s happening right in front of you…Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 5/2/25
The AI Dragnet: The U.S. government is activating a suite of algorithmic surveillance tools, developed in concert with major tech companies, to monitor and criminalize immigrants’ speech, Sophia Goodfriend, Dissent, 4/30/25
Why you should reject Zuck's chatbots, Mark Hurst, Creative Good, 5/2/25: “…the billionaire who profited from creating the loneliness epidemic is now coming to us with a “solution” that involves more screens, more apps, and more profits for him.”
Understanding Trump’s Budget Proposal: What’s being cut and why? Paul Krugman, Newsletter, 5/4/25: “First, the budget removes almost anything that hints at empathy toward people in difficulty…Second, the budget proposal takes aim at science.”
Trump's brain is gone: It really should be a bigger story, Stephen Robinson, Public Notice, 5/2/25: “His repetitive speech patterns, frequent use of empty phrases, and overall rambling discourse are too often graded on a curve.”
Trump is the Godfather in Reverse: He’s making offers countries can’t accept, Paul Krugman, Newsletter, 4/29/25
The Trump Boomerang Effect: Rather than destabilizing Europe, US President Donald Trump’s relentless attacks have catalyzed a strategic awakening across the continent. America’s rejection of its allies has pushed European leaders to confront longstanding challenges with newfound courage, forging a path toward strategic autonomy, Alberto Alemanno, Project Syndicate, 4/30/25
Welcome to The Future: This time it arrived right on schedule, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 5/1/25: “We lived to see the Future, but there’s always another future that comes after that.”
Good Things Are Still Possible: Mohsen Mahdawi is free after his supporters refused to give up the fight, Jack Crosbie, Discourse, 4/30/25
Not Mayday but May Day: Trump Craters, the Public Rises to the Occasion, Rebecca Solnit, Meditations in an Emergency, 4/30/25: “Opposition is spreading– all sorts of groups are organizing and showing up to resist.”
The Best Signs and Art of This Year’s Massive May Day Protests: From criticism of mass deportations to hilarious roasts of the president, May 1 was a nationwide show of art-filled resistance against the Trump administration, Maya Pontone, Hyperallergic, 5/2/25
“Step Aside:” Young Dems Are Done Waiting: Get on board, or get out of the way, Sharon McMahon, The Preamble, 4/29/25: “…the halls of power don’t seem quite so far out of reach for a generation that’s tired of waiting.”
Americans, Stop Waiting for America to Look Like What You Think Fascism Will Look Like, John Pavlovitz, Beautiful Mess, 5/1/25: “…the rise of fascism here isn’t going to look like a jittery, blurry, black and white newsreel.”
Yes, There’s Still A Shared American Identity: And here’s how we can make it a force for good, Colin Woodard, Next Move, 5/2/25: “America is a mission-driven organization and the Declaration of Independence is our mission statement.”
Happy World Press Freedom Day: A Reason To Smile, Dan Rather, Steady, 5/4/25: “We love journalism. We love freedom of speech, and we love the world.”—Michael Stipe, REM. New remix: “Radio Free Europe”
When We Fight, We Win: a federal judge on May 1 halted the Trump Administration's plan to destroy the IMLS, but the battle remains far from over, Andrew Richard Albanese, Words & Money, 5/2/25
Till peace we find tell you what I'll do
All the things I own I will share with you
And if I feel tomorrow like I feel today
We'll take what we want and give the rest away
Strangers on this road we are on
We are not two, we are one
—from “Strangers,” The Kinks, written by Dave Davies
Science, Environment, Wilderness
Is a River Alive? (book review) – streams of consciousness: An impassioned plea to save our rivers combines poetry and adventure, Blake Morrison, The Guardian, 4/28/25: “The battle is to save rivers as living beings. Macfarlane’s impassioned book shows the way, ending on a riskily lyrical high with his arrival as a waterbody complete: ‘I am rivered.’” Book: Is a River Alive?
A tiny tribe wanted to shape the future of a famed canyon. Ancient DNA helped: The Picuris Pueblo nation initiated a partnership with Western scientists, confirming their ties to Chaco Canyon, the center of an ancient Pueblo world, Carolyn Y. Johnson, Washington Post, 4/30/25
Community solar is winning over Republican lawmakers around the US: In Georgia, Iowa, Missouri, and Ohio, GOP legislators have sponsored bills to spur community solar, which allows more people to access cheap, clean power, Alison F. Takemura, Canary Media, 4/29/25
Forecasts of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels soar in Trump’s first 100 days: Tariff chaos hampers Trump’s pledge to ‘drill, baby, drill’, but analysis still shows surge in planet-heating emissions, Oliver Milman, Will Craft, The Guardian, 5/2/25
Scientists develop climate-friendlier rice: Rice fields are a major source of planet-warming methane, but a new variety could help change that, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 4/28/25
Less than 10% of plastics are produced using recycled materials, Helen Albert, Chemistry World, 4/28/25
50 years later, Vietnam’s environment still bears the scars of war – and signals a dark future for Gaza and Ukraine, Pamela McElwee, The Conversation, 4/28/25
How Herbicide Drift from Farms Is Harming Trees in Midwest: Researchers are starting to pay closer attention to the widespread damage wrought by agricultural herbicides. Drifting sprays may not kill trees, shrubs, and other nontarget plants outright, but experts believe they are making them vulnerable to insects, fungi, and disease, Richard Mertens, Yale E360, 4/25/25
Rising temperatures are contributing to the Great Salt Lake’s decline: The shrinking of the lake threatens ecosystems, industries, and even Utah’s lake-effect snow, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 4/29/25
Faced with punishing heatwaves, help for kelp may come from protecting marine predators: At time when ocean reserve protections are threatened, new research shows bans on fishing made kelp ecosystems more resilient, Warren Cornwall, Anthropocene, 4/30/25
Meet the people trying to keep a prehistoric fish alive: Lake sturgeon have long been culturally significant and nutritionally important to First Nations in Ontario, but dams and commercial fishing have put them at risk, Leah Borts-Kuperman, Narwhal, 5/1/25
Walled Off: As barriers to control human migration rise around the world, animals suffer, Phoebe Weston, BioGraphic, 5/1/25: “… border walls obstruct the ranges of more than 700 species of mammals, including leopards, tigers, cheetahs, and the critically endangered saiga antelope.”
A vast molecular cloud, long invisible, is discovered near solar system: The detection of the celestial body could redefine understanding of interstellar medium, Rutgers Univ, ScienceDaily, 4/28/25
AI Is Nothing Like a Brain, and That’s OK: The brain’s astounding cellular diversity and networked complexity could show how to make AI better, Yasemin Saplakoglu, Quanta, 4/30/25: “When you poke at even the most general comparison between biological and artificial intelligence — that both learn by processing information across layers of networked nodes — their similarities quickly crumble.”
May
Such beauty, you say
Let us stop & admire
A moment, a day
The fields & the fire
God the great spider
Has caught you again
—Tom Disch
Health, Wellness
Heart disease deaths worldwide linked to chemical widely used in plastics, NYU Langone, ScienceDaily, 4/29/25
Increasing physical activity in middle age may protect against Alzheimer's disease: Meeting WHO physical activity recommendations is associated with lower accumulation of beta-amyloid, a protein linked to Alzheimer's disease, ISG Global, ScienceDaily, 4/30/25
Birds, Birding
The Pelicans of Chambers Grove Park: What a spectacle! Laura Erickson, For the Birds, 5/1/25: “Aldo Leopold wrote, ‘With queer antediluvian grunts they set wing, descending in majestic spirals to the welcoming wastes of a bygone age.’”
75 percent of North America’s bird species are in decline, study says: Birds are rapidly vanishing from North America, with dramatic population losses in places that were once thought safe, Dino Grandoni, Washington Post, 5/1/25
All Birds Roost in a Single Tree: The first evolutionary tree that includes every avian species, Bob Grant, Nautilus, 5/2/25
Shut Eye
“Let’s pretend we are two owls napping,” the
fatigued father said to his son, “you can be the
owlet”. In this way the father could close his eyes
for a few moments and flirt with sleep. Indeed, a
few seconds was all it took for the sleeping owlet
to turn back into an energetic boy. The trance of
the self is rarely broken. The human mind is closer
to the mind of an owl than it is to a computer.
From FLACOFOLIO by Leonard Schwartz and Heide Harry
Dear Friends: This is the 260th issue of The Weird Times, sent out every Sunday without interruption for five full years! I have to admit to having mixed feelings about this project. It began in the middle of a pandemic fever dream in Trump One that called for some effort to decode what was happening. Things have gone from extremely weird to somewhat better to much, much worse, and here we are in the upside down. Stranger things indeed, and there is literally no end in sight. I believe that there are larger forces than we can understand at work. Poetry and art allow us to decode at least some of the mysteries at hand, and give us hope, and the strength to continue, but it surely is not easy to keep going, is it?
I’d like to believe that these five years of work have made at least a tiny difference to the world. If this newsletter means something to you, I only ask that you pass it to as many people as possible, and every once in a while, let me know whether it means something to you too. I am committed to the work of community building, but I’d like to know that this effort is really helping.
I continue to feel that it’s our turn to defend the planet, with freedom and justice for all.
I send my love to all of you—David
We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love.—Tennessee Williams
Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, otherwise it is no virtue at all.—G.K. Chesterton (1905)
To feel the love of people who we love is a fire that feeds our life.—Pablo Neruda