The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces
The Weird Times: Issue 99, April 3, 2022 (V2 #47)
“What ended democracy in America was the mass migration from farm to city that has left more than half of us living in just the ten biggest states, and left behind a minority in middle America over-represented in the Electoral College and two-per-state Senate.”—Paul Veronese (on Twitter), 3/27/22
“If Dr. Eastman and President Trump’s plan had worked, it would have permanently ended the peaceful transition of power, undermining American democracy and the Constitution. If the country does not commit to investigating and pursuing accountability for those responsible, the Court fears January 6 will repeat itself.”—Judge David O. Carter, 3/28/22
Ed. Note: If you want to read the Carter decision, it’s here. The danger to democracy is alive and well. The entire apparatus of the Republican party has been weaponized by far-right billionaires and idealogues. The majority of our fellow citizens have no clue; many will evidently vote based on their dissatisfaction over the price of gas, food and rent, charged up by right-wing culture war propaganda, while the media talks about Biden’s unpopularity and not his successes. Meanwhile, younger progressives are disaffected by inaction of issues that matter to them like climate and student debt. We need to start talking to everyone we know about the importance of voting and organizing to vote if we truly care about the future.
A poetic look at ‘Earth’s Black Box’ of data on humanity’s climate action and inaction: Like a mirage on the horizon, a strangely shaped orange-colored 33-foot-long vault of sturdy steel in Tasmania is intended to inform future populations, Sue Sinclair, Yale Climate Connections, 3/29/22
War and More
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, Mason Clark, George Barros, Karolina Hird, Institute for the Study of War, 3/31/22: “The Kremlin is likely accelerating efforts to establish quasi-state entities to govern occupied Ukrainian territory.”
Ukraine War Update – April 1, 2022, SOF News: Although the defeat of the Russian army, withdrawal of the Russian forces from all of Ukraine (including Crimea), and the replacement of Putin as the leader of Russia are all desired outcomes . . . it isn’t going to happen.
Biden said out loud in Poland what the whole world already knew -- including Vladimir Putin, Lucian K.Truscott IV, Newsletter, 3/28/22
The Problem with the Donbas, Lawrence Freedman, Comment Is Freed, 3/31/22: “… there are no good outcomes for Russia from this war.”
War got weird: Half a century of IT innovation is now being used for destruction, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 3/31/22: “…the Ukraine war is also showing how recent technological advances have changed the nature of human conflict.
Russian TV Host Calls For ‘Regime Change’ in US – and ‘Our Partner’ Trump to Be Put in Power, Kipp Jones, Mediaite, 3/29/22: “Evgeny Popov says it's time for the Russian people to call on Americans to change the regime in the U.S. before its term expires and to again help our partner Trump to become President."
The double reverse triple salchow intelligence backchannel wangdoodle, Lucian K. Truscott IV, Newsletter, 4/1/22: “… it’s almost impossible to make sense of what we’re doing and why because the CIA, NSA and the Pentagon have decided to engage Putin and his Kremlin cohorts right where they live: in a propaganda war.”
Nov 1, 2021
Walking downhill
on 13th Street
under the trees.
So lucky
to live near these trees
houses and the park.
Lately,
after years of tough,
I appreciate kindness--
After standing
at the busstop
for 5 minutes—
Vavoom, a bus appears
on the horizon,
swooping
around the corner,
right to me.
Door opens! Ah wheels!
Ah warm air.
—Barbara Henning
Climate and Science
Massive Black Holes Shown to Act Like Quantum Particles: Physicists are using quantum math to understand what happens when black holes collide. In a surprise, they’ve shown that a single particle can describe a collision’s entire gravitational wave, Charlie Wood, Quanta, 3/29/22
Two Native tribes are helping create an electric vehicle ‘pipeline’ The Red Lake Nation and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe will benefit from an effort to purchase electric vehicles and install a network of chargers, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 4/1/22
From poop to power: partnership turns pig manure into energy: Roeslein Alternative Energy is working on projects on eight of Smithfield’s Missouri farms, YCC team, Yale Climate Connections, 3/28/22
Humpback Whales Are Recovering! And Other Surprising Pieces of Good News: Some Unlikely and Hopeful Infographics, David McCandless, LitHub, 3/30/22
Russia’s War in Ukraine Reveals a Risk for the EV Future: Price Shocks in Precious Metals: After the nickel market goes haywire, the United States and its allies launch a critical minerals energy security plan, with stockpiling an option, Marianne Lavelle, Inside Climate News, 3/28/22
Why are my allergies so bad? Climate change may be partly to blame: Ragweed, a common culprit in summer and fall allergies, is becoming a more formidable foe, Tiffany Means, Yale Climate Connections, 3/28/22
Can my electric car power my house? Not yet for most drivers, but vehicle-to-home charging is coming, Seth Blumsack, The Conversation, 3/29/22
The Landfill of the Future: Taking inspiration from science fiction, a small company on the Island of Newfoundland aims to revolutionize what we do with garbage, Andrea MacGuire, Hakai, 3/29/22
New England once took salt marshes for granted. But the tides are changing, Patrick Scahill, CT Mirror, 3/29/22 (Ed. Note – this is s story about Great Meadow Marsh in Stratford – I am lucky to live a mile from this beautiful place).
Return of the old gods: why there is nothing delicate about Earth’s balance: Earth is not a benign mother. We have begun to witness what happens when it unleashes its fury, Adam Frank, Big Think, 3/17/22
The Parable of the World’s Largest Bee: The rediscovery of Wallace’s giant bee uncovers disheartening truths about the tenuous fate of hidden insect species, Oliver Milman, Undark, 3/25/22: “Even for something as charismatic as the world’s largest bee we can’t seem to muster enough interest to give it a conservation status or do proper surveys.”
How to compost—and why it’s good for the environment: The science behind recycling your food scraps at home and how it reduces emissions from landfills, Sarah Gibbens, National Geographic, 3/30/22
A Regenerative Grazing Revolution Is Taking Root in the Mid-Atlantic: Farmers are scaling up the practice in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and beyond—and it could simultaneously help clean up the Chesapeake Bay, mitigate climate change, and save small family farms, Lisa Held, Civil Eats, 3/30/22
Reversing hearing loss with regenerative therapy: MIT spinout Frequency Therapeutics’ drug candidate stimulates the growth of hair cells in the inner ear, Zach Winn, MIT News, 3/29/22
Politics Not as Usual
Activist Elaine Brown: ‘You must be willing to die for what you believe in:’ Elaine Brown reveals how in 1974 she came to be the first and only woman to lead the Black Panther Party – and talks about revolution, resistance and activism today, Michael Segalov, The Guardian, 3/27/22: “I can’t un-know what I know. I can’t stop seeing police killing Black people and our suffering.”
Real-Time Market Monitoring Finds Signs of Brewing U.S. Housing Bubble, Jarod Coulter, Valerie Grossman, Enrique Martínez-García, Peter C.B. Phillips, Shuping Shi, Dallas Fed, 3/29/22
Turmoil at CBS News over Trump aide Mick Mulvaney’s punditry gig: A network executive said they want to hire more Republicans to gain ‘access’ ahead of a ‘likely’ Democratic midterm wipeout, Jeremy Barr, Washington Post, 3/30/22
The Indigenous tribe fighting back against the addiction epidemic: The Lummi Nation, on the US west coast, has faced addiction issues for decades. Now they are utilizing a combination of culturally-based healing and western approaches, Hallie Golden, The Guardian, 3/30/22
The Left’s Climate Playbook Is Already Outdated: Russia and inflation are pushing America into a new climate era, Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, 3/30/22
Climate groups say a change in coding can reduce bitcoin energy consumption by 99%: A simple switch in the way transactions are verified could reduce bitcoin’s energy-guzzling mining habits, Dominic Rushe, The Guardian, 3/29/22
America finally gets an Amazon union: Amazon wanted to make former employee Chris Smalls the face of labor activism. He just handed Amazon its first US union, Jason Delray, Vox Recode, 4/1/22: “The win comes despite Amazon’s long history of union-busting in the 28 years since Jeff Bezos founded the company in 1994…”
A Glimpse Into a Fearful, Angry, Imaginary World: Ginni Thomas’s texts offer a window into a dark and conspiratorial mindset, Peter Whener, The Atlantic, 3/30/22
Trans Day of Visibility: The Small Group of Legislators Working on Anti-Trans Bills Won't Win, Sam Ames, Teen Vogue, 3/31/22
Online shopping in the middle of the ocean: E-commerce giants don’t reliably deliver to the remote islands of French Polynesia, so locals made their own online shopping service, Tiare Tuhia, Rest of the World, 3/29/22
How Much Do Things Really Cost? True Price, a Dutch nonprofit, aims to help us grasp the real costs of consumption, Nick Romeo, New Yorker, 4/2/22
The Supply Chain Crisis Is About to Get a Lot Worse: A seemingly endless supply chain crunch has fueled interest in tech that promises to track problems or predict where new ones might occur, Will Knight, Wired, 3/28/22
Ectopic Pregnancies Are Medical Emergencies — Not Political Footballs: In this op-ed, a North Carolina congressional candidate talks about her experience with ectopic pregnancy, Nida Allam, Teen Vogue, 4/1/22
The Constitutional Law Theory That Could Upend American Elections, Marc Elias, Democracy Docket, 3/29/22: “The doctrine argues that state legislatures have special authority to set federal election rules, free from interference from other parts of the state government. Despite running contrary to precedent and history, the Supreme Court appears dangerously close to adopting it — with potentially disastrous ramifications for democracy.”
What Increasingly Partisan and Venomous Wisconsin School Board Races Reveal About American Elections: As traditionally nonpartisan school board campaigns become polarized battlegrounds, voters in next week’s Wisconsin races may set the tone for how contenMegan O’Matz, ProPublica, 4/1/22
GOP Senator Rick Scott Trips Over His Own Asshole Trying to Defend Own Plan to Tax the Poor: The Florida lawmaker couldn’t believe what he’d proposed for America, Bess Levin, Vanity Fair, 3/28/22
Books and Culture
How Ramona Quimby Taught a Generation of Girls to Embrace Brashness, on Having the Right to Be 'Too Much,’ Rachel Vorona Cote, LitHub, 3/27/22
How a Naming Ceremony Unlocks a History of Power: Sasha LaPointe on Taking the Skagit Name of Her Great Grandmother, Sasha LaPointe, LitHub, 3/30/22: “I like to think my great-grandmother knew what she was doing that day, that she knew the countercurse I would someday need.”
How the pandemic created a new generation of stoners: Americans who rarely, if ever, smoked marijuana before the pandemic now say they’re turning to weed to help them cope, Luke Winkie, The Guardian, 4/1/22
A Bookstore Revival Channels Nostalgia for Big Box Chains: Fond feelings for the big chains of the ‘90s help to explain a renaissance for mall bookstores in the U.S., Alexandra Lange, Bloomberg City Lab, 3/28/22
Almost Right Words, Right Words, Wrong Words: Lessons from Mark Twain and congressional hearings, John Warner, The Biblioracle Recommends, 3/27/22: “I spend a lot of time thinking about rhetoric and choices of language. There really is a significant difference between the almost right word and the right word. There’s also a big difference between the right word and the wrong word.”
Her World Began to Collapse, So She Started Keeping a Diary: The Ukrainian writer and photographer Yevgenia Belorusets on what it means to make art during wartime, Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic, 3/25/22
‘I’m living for the ones who didn’t make it’: Bonnie Raitt on her unquenchable thirst for music, As she wins a lifetime achievement Grammy at 72, the US singer who crossed blues with pop is still determined to support artists who never got their dues, Kat Lister, The Guardian, 4/1/22: ‘Stay true to your art and when you’re 70 years old people will still want to come and see you’
When did the choices get so hard
With so much more at stake
Life gets mighty precious
When there's less of it to wa-a-a-aste—from “Nick of Time” by Bonnie Raitt
Facts Haven’t Spurred Us to Climate Action. Can Fiction? The emerging genre of climate fiction is portraying — in ways that nonfiction can’t — the perils of a scorching planet, Mark Johnson, Undark, 3/31/22
Grieving His Mother's Death, Ocean Vuong Learned to Write for Himself, Nicole Chung, Time, 3/30/22
Read of the Week: If you don’t have time for anything else, click through to read this post: Human rights and digital spycraft, Mark Hurst, Creative Good, 4/1/22: “The surveillance state is coming to your neighborhood, spouting happytalk about “convenience” and “transparency.” We’ll be told it’s just on an opt-in basis, for those forward-looking citizens who would like to take advantage of the future. Soon enough, though, things will change.”
Kiev Calling, Beton, from “Free Ukraine”
Maybe I want to see the wheat fields
Over Kiev and down to the sea
All the young people down the ages
They gladly marched off to die
Proud city fathers used to watch them
Tears in their eyes— “The Call Up” by The Clash, Mick Jones & Joe Strummer
“To sum up, then, the way I have tried to write, as distinguished from the technical aspects of verse: I believe in clarity of meaning and therefore in precision; I believe in intensity and therefore in writing concisely; and, finally, I believe in writing about the object itself, and I let the reader, or listener, draw his own conclusions and make his own comparisons and analogies. They are sometimes better than the writer himself intended and profounder. I remember a Hindu saying: a work of art has many faces.”—Charles Reznikoff (via Karl Gartung)
BirdLife
Why do flocks of birds swoop and swirl together in the sky? A biologist explains the science of murmurations: Murmurations have no leader and follow no plan, Tom Langen, Big Think, 3/31/22
Hawaiian Airlines Flies Birds To Mexico To Escape Sea Level Rise: The airline has teamed up with conservation groups to protect an endangered albatross species, Luke Bodell, Simple Flying, 3/31/22
Reality TV for birds shows that conservation research can pay off: Thousands of us are glued to the online dramas of two peregrines on the Cal Falcons webcam, but it is just the start of what tech can do for bird studies, writes, Annalee Newitz, New Scientist, 3/20/22
This week, in response to some comments (complaints) from readers, I tried to cut down on text and increase the number of graphics. Still, much news and many important stories to follow.
Until next week, warm regards, celebrate spring and do keep in touch. Comments, contributions, constructive complaints are always welcome. Love to all — David