The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 158, May 21, 2023 (V4 #2)
The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”—Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995)
All movies are brief reincarnations.—Richard Grossinger
Books, Art, Culture
Jim Brown, all-time NFL great and social activist, dead at 87, Tom Withers, AP News, 5/19/23: “Give me Jim Brown over anybody — at anything”—Paul Hornung
Martin Amis was Mick Jagger in literary form, I was besotted with his electrifying prose: Amis transformed vernacular English into screamingly funny voice-powered novels in the 80s and 90s, but he was even better in his later collections of journalism – showing how style was intrinsic to perception, Geoff Dyer, The Guardian, 5/21/23
‘Freedom to publish hasn’t been under such threat in the West until recently’: Author Salman Rushdie: The Booker Prize-winning novelist Salman Rushdie was speaking at the British Book Awards after winning an award for Freedom to Publish, Scroll Staff, Scroll, 5/16/23
PEN America, Penguin Random House sue Florida school district over book bans, Anthony Izaguirre, AP News, 5/17/23: “The law demands that the Escambia County School District put removed or restricted books back on library shelves where they belong.”
Two moms are at the center of the fight against book banning in America: ‘It’s exhausting,’ Jeffrey Fleishman, LA Times, 5/15/23: “The passion around book banning in public schools underscores the dangerous rancor in the nation’s politics.”
Book bans soared in the ’70s, too. The Supreme Court stepped in, Anthony Aycock, Washington Post, 5/20/23: “Justice William J. Brennan Jr. wrote that while “local school boards have a substantial legitimate role to play in the determination of school library content,” those boards’ authority “must be exercised in a manner that comports with the transcendent imperatives of the First Amendment.””
Conservatives Bully L.A. Dodgers Into Dropping Charity Drag Group From Pride Night: The Sisters of Perpetual indulgence, a LGBTQ community nonprofit, has long scandalized Catholics with their campy nun cosplay, Mike Klee, Rolling Stone, 5/17/23
Literary Criticism as a Secular Spiritual Discipline: Writer discusses his project to read and review every story in Best American Short Stories each year, Jacob R. Weber, Lit Mag News, 5/18/23: “I have a responsibility to the writers to consider their work seriously.”
Why the Spanish Civil War Mattered to Writers on Distant Shores: the Role Literature Played in the Fight Against Fascism, Sarah Watling, LitHub, 5/15/23: “Of all the defeats in history, perhaps only Troy has been as well served by literature as Republican Spain was during and after the ascension of Franco.” Book: Tomorrow Perhaps the Future: Writers, Outsiders, and the Spanish Civil War
The Inventor of Magical Realism: It remains a mystery why Miguel Ángel Asturias’s brilliant novel Mr. President remains less well known in the English-speaking world than the many novels it inspired, Larry Rohter, NY Review of Books, 5/25/23 issue: “…it also ranks as one of the most important and influential works of modern Latin American literature, a kind of urtext for the celebrated generation of novelists that followed Asturias.” Book: Mr. President (translated by David Unger)
Long-hidden ruins of vast network of Maya cities could recast history: In Guatemala, scientists map well-organized network of 417 cities dating to circa 1,000 B.C., Charlotte Lytton, Washington Post, 5/20/23
Your righteous eyes, your laconic
trigger-fingers
people the streets with villains:
as you move, the air in front of you
blossoms with targets
—from “Backdrop addresses cowboy,” Margaret Atwood
Politicks
Anthony Comstock is Reaching Up Out of the Grave for the Necks of Women: He was so ignorant of sex & reproduction that he believed a visible human-like fetus developed “within seconds” of sexual intercourse. Here's how he could shut down every abortion facility in America…Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 5/19/23
What is the whole right-wing campaign to control the judiciary really about, anyway? Lucian K. Truscott IV, Newsletter, 5/19/23: “Three words: demographics, issues and elections.”
The Queers Versus The Homosexuals: We are in a new era. And the erasure of gay men and lesbians is intensifying, Andrew Sullivan, Weekly Dish, 5/19/23: “…we have to be insistent that the gay experience is distinct and different and not intrinsically connected to either queer ideology or the trans experience.”
Collective Guilt is the Most Indefensible Form of Cancel Culture: PEN’s decision to disinvite Russian dissident writers from the World Voices Festival sets a dangerous precedent, Yascha Mounk, Persuasion, 5/17/23
I’m an educator and grandson of Holocaust survivors, and I see public schools failing to give students the historical knowledge they need to keep our democracy strong, Boaz Dvir, The Conversation, 5/15/23
The Fight for the Soul of a School Board: In a small Missouri town, a campaign to remove literature from the high-school library forced members of the community to reckon with the meaning of “parents’ rights,” Sue Halpern, New Yorker, 5/18/23: “who’s gonna stand up, if not us?”
A New Lawsuit Puts the Online White Supremacy Pipeline on Trial: The families of victims of a mass shooting in Buffalo are challenging the platforms they believe led the attacker to carry out a racist massacre, Justin Ling, Wired, 5/15/23
The Myth of the Well-Armed Cowboy: The Hidden History of Guns and the 2nd Amendment, Tom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 5/21/23: “There are solutions to this epidemic of gun violence and mass shootings, but they first require a clear-eyed reconciliation of America’s past with its present.”
How William F. Buckley Jr.’s Right-Wing College Crusade Paved the Way for Ron DeSantis: The Florida governor wants to turn campuses into ideological battlefields. The far right began that quest some 75 years ago, Sam Tanenhaus, Vanity Fair, 5/18/23
‘Mistaken, misread, misquoted, mislabeled, and mis-spoken’ – what Woody Guthrie wrote about the national debt debate in Congress during the Depression, Mark Allan Jackson, The Conversation, 5/17/23: (He) compared their debates to “hearin’ the hens a cacklin’ – and a runnin’ out to th barn.”
The US debt ceiling crisis is more proof of Republicans’ cynicism and bad faith, Republicans want to force spending cuts by threat instead of legislating – and the cuts they’re asking for are appalling, Jill Filipovic, The Guardian, 5/18/23
Deliberative Democracy Lab to Demonstrate Deliberative Polling® Method at the 2023 Nobel Prize Summit: On May 25, CDDRL’s Deliberative Democracy Lab (DDL), in partnership with the Nobel Prize Summit, will run an exercise in large-scale group deliberation on the subject of online misinformation and polarization and what to do about it. This demonstration will help develop the capacity to democratically vet policy proposals concerning the information landscape, Nora Sulots, Stanford University News, 5/12/23
The Secret Plan to Break the “Independent Spirit” of the Supreme Court Revealed: Hamilton and the other Framers envisioned a Supreme Court that was immune to public opinion, the arguments of presidents and senators, and great wealth alike - but today's GOP has a different plan…Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 5/18/23: “But with conservative judges, just like with conservative politicians, comes the corruption associated with deference to political power and great wealth (the hallmarks of today’s conservative movement).”
AI Chatbots and Our Loneliness Epidemic: Examining Three Statistics That Capture Long-Term Behavior Shifts, Rex Woodbury, Digital Native, 5/19/23: “While 61% of all U.S. adults report feeling lonely, that figure is 79% among Gen Z and 71% among Millennials.”
Why use of AI is a major sticking point in the ongoing writers' strike: The writers' strike was initially about compensation in an era of streaming services. Now the role of AI has also become a major point of contention in negotiations between the Writers Guild of America and companies such as Disney and Netflix, Jeremy Hsu, New Scientist, 5/15/23
Beware the Squirrel: Why worries about AI killing us all are distracting from the real problems, Verity Harding, Comment is Freed, 5/17/23: “…this notion of an out-of-control system that will somehow kill us all has gained new traction, and in doing so has scared a whole new bunch of people.”
Why Customers Don’t Want Chatbots, Mark Hurst, Creative Good, 5/19/23: “ The tech companies have too much money and power, and they’re using it to push “innovations” on us that pump up short-term financial gains while trashing the user experience.”
Politicians Need to Learn How AI Works—Fast: Tech regulation has often disappointed. Automation expert Missy Cummings hopes a course to teach policymakers about artificial intelligence can help, Will Knight, Wired, 5/18/23
Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving
But how can they know it's time for them to go?
Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming
I have no thought of time
For who knows where the time goes?
—from “Who Knows Where the Time Goes,” Fairport Convention, written by Sandy Denny
Science & Environment
One Great Shot: Gimme Shelter: In the open ocean, where shelter is rare, young fish find safety under stunning blue hydroids, Henley Spiers, Hakai, 5/19/23
The last 33 caribou: fighting for the survival of a Wet’suwet’en herd: Surrounded by industrial development and human habitation, less than three dozen caribou remain on Wet’suwet’en territory. As government biologists fight to keep the herd alive, recovery efforts will need to look to the past to plan for the future, Matt Simmons, The Narwhal, 5/17/23
How trees become elders in a human-dominated world: A team of researchers combed through a database of 1.8 million century-old trees in China to solve an Anthropocene puzzle, Sarah DeWeerdt, Anthropocene, 5/16/23
Can Farming with Trees Save the Food System? Unprecedented funding is flowing into a broad range of agroforestry practices, which can pull carbon out of the atmosphere and build farm resilience as the climate changes, Lisa Held, The Conversation, 5/17/23
Cycads: the primeval plants getting rarer – and harder to protect: Here before the dinosaurs, plants now face extinction due to illegal trade and vanishing tropical forests, Paul Simons, The Guardian, 5/17/23
Bees can learn, remember, think and make decisions – here’s a look at how they navigate the world, Stephen Buchmann, The Conversation, 5/17/23: “Bees are intelligent animals that likely feel pain, remember patterns and odors and even recognize human faces. They can solve mazes and other problems and use simple tools.”
A New Study Reveals the Traits That Speed Up Evolution: The first large-scale comparison of DNA mutation rates in 68 different vertebrate species gives insights into how quickly life can evolve, Yasemin Saplakoglu, Wired, 5/14/23
All the arguments against EVs are wrong: EVs are just going to win, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, May 14, 2023: “Except on long trips, you’ll be forever freed from the regular, tedious task of filling up your car every few days.”
A New Battery Intended to Power Passenger Airplanes and EVs, Explained: CATL, the China-based global leader in EV batteries, recently announced a “semi-solid state” design with the potential for super long range, Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News, 5/18/23
How to Quit Cars: They crowd streets, belch carbon, bifurcate communities, and destroy the urban fabric. Will we ever overcome our addiction? Adam Gopnik, New Yorker, 5/15/23: “The history of transportation will always be social history, writ large.”
Maybe we should have called this planet 'Ocean:’ Because then we'd be paying more attention to some truly freaky data, Bill McKibben, The Crucial Years, 5/17/23: “…over the past 15 years, the Earth has accumulated almost as much heat as it did in the previous 45 years,” and that 89 percent of that heat has ended up in the seas. That would be terrifying on its own, but coming right now it’s even scarier.”
A simple way to prevent heaps of methane pollution: Composting: A new study says the practice could slash landfill emissions by as much as 84 percent, Max Graham, The Grist, 5/15/23
New York City May Be Sinking Under the Weight of Its Skyscrapers: A scientific journal suggests that the city’s 1.68 trillion pounds of buildings are causing the city to descend, in some neighborhoods faster than others, Tim Nelson, Architectural Digest, 5/17/23
The Upper Atmosphere Is Cooling, Prompting New Climate Concerns: A new study reaffirming that global climate change is human-made also found the upper atmosphere is cooling dramatically because of rising CO2 levels. Scientists are worried about the effect this cooling could have on orbiting satellites, the ozone layer, and Earth’s weather, Fred Pearce, Yale Environment 360, 5/18/23
How did nonstick "forever chemicals" get into our food? Blame pesticides: The compounds used in nonstick pans and rain jackets aren't used as pesticides. How did they contaminate them? Matthew Rozsa, Salon, 5/16/23
'We Need to Engage People': Scientists Arrested Demanding Climate Action: "It is us doing our jobs and holding our government to account," one participating scientist said, Olivia Rosane, Common Dreams, 5/15/23
The man in the moon –
Stars for supper,
Hunger all day.
—Robert Kroetsch
Health & Wellness
The Daring Robot Surgery That Saved a Man’s Life: Two doctors, separated by thousands of miles, carried out a lifesaving operation using a robot. It’s the start of a major change in how surgery is performed, Joao Madeiros, Wired, 5/18/23
Is climate change causing a resurgence in infectious diseases? The clock is ticking to restore our relationship with nature to one that is mutually beneficial, not detrimental to our existence, Francesco Branda, Telegraph (UK), 5/18/23
Why is COVID life-threatening for some people? Genetics study offers clues: Immune genes could play a part in the risk of needing intensive care when infected with SARS-CoV-2, Heidi Ledford, Nature, 5/17/23
and of the sounds, here,
what the bird knows is
what the bird sings
—bp nichol (his last poem)
Birds
Why birds and their songs are good for our mental health: Birds are a way to connect with nature, which is associated with better body and brain health, research shows, Richard Sima, Washington Post, 5/18/23
Use of pesticides and herbicides found to be biggest cause of bird decline in Europe, Bob Yirka, Phys.org, 5/17/23: “…the rise of intensive agriculture in both Europe and the U.K. has led to massive drops in bird population numbers. They found that urbanization was the second leading factor.”
Hiding Seeds? It Depends on Who’s Watching: Bird species’ social lives influence their food-storing behavior, Mary Bates, Psychology Today, 5/15/23
Summer Reads
Girl with a Knife: Assault by JT Hogg (historical fiction)
The Devil’s Presence by James Goldsborough (contemporary fiction)
Poets on the Road by Maureen Owen and Barbara Henning (travelogue)
“When you were a child you believed yourself special, deserving, and every piece of evidence to the contrary broke your heart. As an adult, the same was true.”— Elizabeth McCracken, “Mistress Mickle All at Sea”
I suppose at least some of us are wondering whether the latest example of right wing infantilism - the manufactured “debt ceiling crisis” - will be resolved. If the Democrats are supposedly “the adults in the room,” maybe they will start acting the part. We can’t expect responsible behavior from a Republican party that thinks throwing shit on the wall is the best approach to getting their way. Maybe in political terms, someone could finally just send them to their room until they can figure out how to talk to the rest of us without screaming and tearing down the walls of the house we all live in.
Or maybe we have to wait until they finally do tear it all down and we can get together to end this nonsense. It would have been helpful if Biden’s team could have seen this coming and had a real plan ready to keep the lunatics at bay. Instead, we have yet another performative moment, perfected by Trump, to keep our attention focused on the wrong thing - the impending collapse of our economy - when we should be focusing on building a sustainable society that won’t collapse the entire world ecosystem.
Sigh.
It’s yet another crazy week and there’s no sign of a let up. Let’s hope we can keep it together. See you next week. Maybe the sun will be out at last. The garden is off to a good start here. Much love—David