The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces
The Weird Times: Issue 131, November 13, 2022 (V3 #27)
“Larry David was right.” —Dave Pell
“The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison.”—Fyodor Dostoevsky
“I am not the author of myself, but I am in my domain, my emptiness.”—Michael Heller
Politicks!
Democrats keep control of the Senate with win in Nevada: The final blow to the GOP’s majority ambitions came Saturday, when Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto was projected to win, Hannah Knowles, Liz Goodwin, Washington Post, 11/13/22
Why the midterms make me optimistic for America: A win for stability and reasonability, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 11/12/22: “In important ways, democracy was on the ballot, and it won a resounding victory.”
Did We Just Save Democracy? The 2022 midterms were stunning as much for what didn’t happen as for what did, Robert Kuttner, American Prospect, 11/11/22: “Tuesday proved that America is still a democracy. We are going to have to keep fighting like hell to keep it that way.”
Political Media is Broken, Judd Legum, Popular Information, 11/10/22: “The political media has substituted polling analysis, which is something only people managing campaigns really need, for substantive analysis of the positions of the candidates, something that voters need.”
The Age of Social Media Is Ending: It never should have begun, Ian Bogost, The Atlantic, 11/10/22: “Social media was never a natural way to work, play, and socialize, though it did become second nature. The practice evolved via a weird mutation, one so subtle that it was difficult to spot happening in the moment.” Ed Note: I don’t think I agree with this writer, but it’s worth reading the article.
Hope for a Post-Musk Net: A federated future and suggestions for citizens and institutions, Jeff Jarvis, Medium, 11/5/22: “The net is us, or it can be at last.”
10 Charts That Capture How the World Is Changing: From Homeownership to Digital Media Consumption, Climate Change to Job Growth, Rex Woodbury, Digital Native, 11/9/22
Of sanctions and silencings: Russia's war as cultural suicide, Timothy Snyder, Thinking About, 11/12/22: “As a result of the war, Ukrainians have changed their linguistic habits, and prominent writers have ceased to write in Russian and begun to write in Ukrainian. Nothing has done as much to destroy what Putin calls "the Russian world" as his war.”
Iranian activist Masih Alinejad: ‘It’s the start of the end for the Islamic Republic:’ The exiled journalist on why Iran’s rulers fear the women’s uprising and why western leaders are failing protesters, Kim Willsher, The Guardian, 11/2/22
A Pussy Riot member describes what Brittney Griner can expect in Russian penal colony, Charles Maynes, NPR, 11/10/22: “Write letters. Connect with her lawyers. Ask questions about her inside the system. Do not leave her alone.”
"What happens when you put ideologues in charge of a university,” Tesnim Zekeria, Judd Legum, Popular Information, 10/24/22
When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we'll see
No, I won't be afraid
—from “Stand by Me,” Ben E. King, Jerry Lieber, Mike Stoller
What We’re up Against
what I thought you meant by toughness
the terrible anxiety of getting close enough
to touch each other when you asked
are we worthy?
have we learned the motion of the moon
and stars well enough to predict our futures?
there is so little in the dust to help us understand
what we’re up against
when we sit or stand beside each other
what our bodies want and know
if we’d only allow ourselves
the freedom to dance
—David Wilk
Environment, Food, Science
These Food Brands Are Actually Raising Prices Higher Than Inflation Rates Call For: Critics claim food companies and restaurants are taking advantage of inflation to raise prices higher and higher, Sam Stone, Bon Appetit, 11/2/22
Urban Farms Are Stepping Up Their Roles in Communities Nationwide: After a road trip touring farms around the country, our reporter provides a snapshot of how three innovative, resilient urban farms are making use of new federal funds to fight food insecurity and build connections with neighbors, Rachel Surls, Civil Eats, 11/10/22
Powerful Aerial Photos Show the Consequences of Drought on the Colorado River, Jessica Stewart, My Modern Met, 10/23/22
Scientists Are Uncovering Ominous Waters Under Antarctic Ice: A super-pressurized, 290-mile-long river is running under the ice sheet. That could be bad news for sea-level rise, Matt Simon, Wired, 11/8/22
The wasted potential of garbage dumps: Toxic landfills are emblems of environmental injustice across the US. Clean energy can remake them, Neel Dhanesha, Vox, 10/24/22
Fed up young climate activists: ‘Adults aren’t listening,’ Seth Borenstein, Suman Naishadham, AP News, 11/10/22
World has nine years to avert catastrophic warming, study shows: Scientists say gas projects discussed at U.N. climate conference would seriously threaten world’s climate goals, Sarah Kaplan, Washington Post, 11/11/22
Deforestation is pushing Amazon to ‘point of no return’: WWF report, Maxwell Radwin, Monga Bay, 11/9/22
Welcoming Herring Home: In Howe Sound, British Columbia, a new generation of stewards is keeping careful tabs on the comeback efforts of a tiny fish with big cultural value, Lauren Kaljur, Hakai, 11/8/22
Inside Alphabet X’s new effort to combat climate change with seagrass: A previously unrevealed program would use cameras, computer vision, and machine learning to track the carbon stored in the biomass of the oceans, James Temple, MIT Technology Review, 11/9/22
Discovery of a new beaver benefit is a happy accident: In a happy accident, a beaver dam built in the middle of a river research project illuminated how their presence improved water quality, Warren Cornwall, Anthropocene, 11/9/22
They made a material that doesn’t exist on Earth. That’s only the start of the story, Paddy Hirsch, OPB, 11/8/22: “The compound is called tetrataenite, and the fact that scientists have found a way to make it in a lab is a huge deal. If synthetic tetrataenite works in industrial applications, it could make green energy technologies significantly cheaper.”
CRISPR cancer trial success paves the way for personalized treatments: ‘Most complicated therapy ever’ tailors bespoke, genome-edited immune cells to attack tumours. Heidi Ledford, Nature, 11/10/22
How a sand battery could transform clean energy: A new way of storing renewable energy is providing clean heat through the long Nordic nights, Erica Benke, BBC, 11/3/22
‘It was giving me a hug’: video captures rare giant octopus encounter: Canadian diver captures footage of the cephalopod drawing closer and closer until it fully embraces her, Leyland Secco, The Guardian, 11/10/22
Replace animal farms with micro-organism tanks, say campaigners: Advocates of plant-based protein say 75% of world’s farmland should be rewilded to reduce emissions, Helena Horton, The Guardian, 11/11/22
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside. You can
hold on or let go.
—from “Variations on the Word Love,” Margaret Atwood
Books and Culture
How Grief and Revenge Made Geronimo Into a Legendary War Chief: Before Geronimo Became the Apaches’ Fabled War Commander, He Lost Everything, H.W. Brands, LitHub, 11/8/22. Book: The Last Campaign: Sherman, Geronimo and the War for America
Faith Ringgold’s American Dream: In her indelible images of the civil rights era, the artist understood that Black liberation has multiple fronts, Tausif Noor, NY Review of Books, 11/10/22: “I wanted my painting to express this moment I knew was history. I wanted to give my woman’s point of view to this period.”
Bookstores vanish from Japan as population falls, Chika Takada, Japan Times, 10/25/22: “there are currently 11,952 bookstores in Japan, down about 30% from 16,722 in 2012.” Ed: America had 12,151 bookstores in 1998 and 6,045 in 2019.
School District Pulls 7 LGBTQ+ Books From Shelves, Christopher Wiggins, Advocate, 11/8/22: “A school district near Milwaukee has removed seven books that deal with LGBTQ+ themes from circulation in what critics call a coordinated far-right attack on Wisconsin schools.”
I Remember All Too Well: Taylor Swift and Joe Brainard, JoAnna Novak, Paris Review, 11/9/22: “Brainard’s writing is akin to the visual art he made: friendly and image-drenched and nonchalantly funny, kind of telescopic in a diaristic way that’s relentlessly present in its anaphora, and also sometimes sort of sexy. I find myself thinking about Joe Brainard whenever I listen to “All Too Well.” Swift sings the word remember eighteen times. And then there’s the third verse, which begins by conjuring her ex-lover in a childhood photograph, a seemingly ordinary boy with glasses.”
On Harold of the Purple Crayon and the Value of an Imaginative Journey: Ross Ellenhorn Considers the Lessons and History of Crockett Johnson’s Classic, Ross Ellenhorn, LitHub, 11/8/22: “The thing he uses to protect his dignity and the thing he’s protecting that makes him dignified are the same: his one-of-a-kind soul.”
Dream of a Past: H.D.’s writing and rewriting of herself, Ella Fox-Martens, The Baffler, 11/10/22: “The most singular thing about HERmione is H.D. herself, rather than any special messages that the novel imparts, or innovation of form.”
Discovery of bronzes rewrites Italy’s Etruscan-Roman history, Nicole Winfield, AP News, 11/8/22: “the discovery was significant because it sheds new light on the end of the Etruscan civilization and the expansion of the Roman Empire in today’s central Italy between the 2nd and 1st centuries B.C.”
Oldest known sentence written in first alphabet discovered – on a head-lice comb: Timeless fret over hygiene picked out on engraved Bronze age comb from ancient kingdom of Judah, Ian Sample, The Guardian, 11/8/22: “Believed to be the oldest known sentence written in the earliest alphabet, the inscription on the luxury item reads: May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard.”
Baby boomers can’t stop staring at their phones: Everyone struggles to put down their phones, but some families have had enough, Heather Kelly, Washington Post, 11/12/22
The Jewish Authenticity Trap: This fierce, often insightful cri de coeur presents a strangely selective picture of Jewishness, cropping a rich, messy, diverse, and complex history to fit into a tightly focused frame, Sara Lipton, NY Review of Books, 11/24/22 issue: “Horn fears that repeatedly invoking the slaughtered six million raises the bar impossibly high, allowing for the dismissal of less sensational forms of anti-Semitism and obscuring real and present dangers to Jews.” Book: People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present, Dara Horn
Do We Have the History of Native Americans Backward? They dominated far longer than they were dominated, and, a new book contends, shaped the United States in profound ways, David Treuer, New Yorker, 11/7/22
Well, there's a small boat made of china
It's going nowhere on the mantlepiece
Well, do I lie like a loungeroom lizard
Or do I sing like a bird released?
Everywhere you go, always take the weather with you
—from “Weather with You,” Crowded House, written by Neil Finn and Tim Finn
Birdland
Birdwatch: why coots and their ‘friends’ are worth a closer look: The ‘funny black ducks’ from my youth are often near a gadwall – and I was shocked to learn why, Stephen Moss, The Guardian, 11/8/22
Bird flu is a huge problem now – but we’re just one mutation away from it getting much worse: If the H5N1 virus jumps into the human population and more dangerous strains emerge, it could set off a new pandemic, Devi Sridhar, The Guardian, 11/9/22
New Mexico’s Beloved Pinyon Jay Is Losing Its Pine Habitat: A Western landscape’s namesake bird is threatened by climate change, and perhaps by wildfire prevention tactics that thin out the trees they rely on, Sara van Note, Wired, 11/6/22
Why Birds Are Anti-Aging Superstars: Despite their extreme lifestyles, avians can live remarkably long lives for animals their size, Margo Rosenbaum, Audubon, 11/10/22
Hunting With Birds Of Prey An Art And Skill, Say Wyoming Falconers, Mark Heinz, Cowboy State Daily, 11/9/22
Messengers from the Past, Priyanka Kumar, Orion Magazine: “Before nesting, the cranes paint themselves with mud and vegetation in order to blend into their landscape. They subscribe to the philosophy of slow parenting, incubating a clutch of two eggs for roughly a month and allowing their chicks up to a generous five months to fledge. One study showed that young siblings frequently grow aggressive with one another but the parents use food to mediate such conflicts. I find them to be very relatable birds.” Excerpt from Conversations with Birds
Happy Birthday to Margaret Atwood (11/18/1939)
Happy Birthday to Astrid Lindgren, author of Pippi Longstocking, (11/14/1907)
"I have never seen anyone who walks with his ears," said Pippi. "All the people I know walk with their feet.”
If your tongue is sleeping
Curled inside your head
Like a lion or a serpent
You might as well be dead
—from “Everybody’s Famous,” Jeffrey Foucault
If you don’t yet know about Wisconsin-based Penzey’s Spices, be sure to visit their website. They carry a great selection of spices and cooking supplies, and unlike most businesses that do not wish to alienate any group of customers, Penzey’s has been publicly and vocally a strong pro-democracy supporter, especially this year, and that cost them alot of business I hope we can help replace.
This week brought us some hope and comfort, for sure, but if we’ve learned anything about the anti-democratic control freaks on the right, they will not quit, and neither can we. And the news at COP27 about climate change is just terrible. So there is no rest for the weary and much work to be done. Take beauty and pleasure where you can; stay safe, and stay vigilant. Love to all —David
